The Markarth Incident
by vlalekat
Summary: COMPLETE! The Markarth Incident would lead to the Civil War in Skyrim. But what really happened 25 years ago? Based on the canon book 'The Markarth Incident" and follows the fight to keep the Reach a part of Skyrim and Talos worship legal. Ulfric and Igmund fight Madanach for control of the Reach. Features canon and original characters - reviewing gives good karma!
1. The Bear

The Markarth Incident: The Bear

By: Veronica Lale

Disclaimer: Thanks Bethesda, for creating an immersive world. I've taken the basis for this story from the in-game book "The Bear of Markarth." Some characters from the game appear with fleshed-out back stories, and I've created some of my own to create a more full and compelling story.

* * *

Ulfric was a big man. He had a big build and a big presence. He had broad shoulders and when he walked into a room, the crowd hushed and listened to what he had to say. He never had to raise his voice above a low rumble, and his orders were followed without question.

On the road to Markarth, on his large bay warhorse, he spent most of his time lost in thought. It was a slow trip with most of his troops walking, and he was irritable and tired of the sound of mail rattling around him. They'd been on the road since dawn and already the Jarl's son was weary with travel. There was a sense of heaviness to the morning fog; this journey reminded him of the last time he had headed south for war, at the head of a column of soldiers. That trip had ended in his own torture at the hands of that sly elf; he hated to think where this would lead him.

But Ulfric had a big faith in Talos, and this was his holy war. Not only that, but this would finish the Great War; this would finally make him a man in his father's eyes - if he survived.

So; he'd called his troops and outfitted all the soldiers in a flurry of activity. He'd given a kiss to Ahlalira, the girl he'd married just weeks ago, and he'd left Jorlief with instructions on the interment of his bones if they should be all of him that returned to Windhelm. He'd gone to the shrine of Talos to pray for wisdom and Talos's blessing. He'd gone to say farewell to his father.

Asmond was a hard man and a difficult Jarl. Eastmarch was a rough hold to rule, and Windhelm an even rougher city. It had been Asmond that created the Argonian Assemblage when the scalebacks had been drinking too much and making trouble at Candlehearth Hall. It had been Asmond that made the decision to corral the dark elves into the Grey Quarter when they'd started spilling out into the rest of the city. These decisions, though Ulfric questioned them at the time, had maintained order and he saw now why they had been necessary.

And so he had gone to his father's sickroom on his way out of the city and said goodbye, and thank you, and that he was sorry. His father had coughed out a derisive laugh at that, and promised to outlive his son. Now on the road, with the excitement of setting out behind him, Ulfric wondered if he would ever see the hot springs of Eastmarch again, and the reality of this made him sentimental and nostalgic.

He hated feeling sentimental.

He sat on his horse, chin buried in the fur collar of his cloak, and brooded, ignoring the riot of noise behind him from the troops in the column. There was cheering and he could make out four distinct chants – and was that _whistling_? He could hardly believe someone back there was whistling. It must be a bird of some sort that he hadn't noticed before.

He thought of Ahlalira, sitting in the Palace of the Kings. Perhaps she would sit at a window and wait for his return. She was a delicate girl with fine bones like a bird; she was so small next to him that he could pick her up with one arm, and when he lay with her he was afraid he might crush her. She didn't seem to think much of him either way; their marriage had been one of politics, not love, as she was the daughter of a lord of Hammerfell. The marriage was decided when he was a boy and she was just born; at this point there was nothing to do but carry it out and live their lives as they must. She spent her days ignoring him and their nights lying indifferent as he moved on top of her. She spoke a foreign tongue and often commented that she found their delicacies bland; her voice had an alien lilt to it. It would have been charming had she not been so dull; it would have at least made it more interesting if she was detestable, but she was nearly invisible instead.

Sitting on his horse, looking through the gray morning, he wondered if he would have a son when he returned. He wasn't sure they'd been married long enough for his seed to take root, as it were, and he wondered aimlessly what would happen if he died in battle. Surely Jorlief would rule ably until an heir could be located, and wouldn't expect his father to step back up? Asmond was too old, too tired to handle the petty squabbles and catastrophes of Jarlship. Ahlalira wasn't addlepated and she was capable enough with a blade, but now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure he wanted her to rule the hold if he didn't return.

Listening to the excitement around him, Ulfric thought back to his first siege, and wondered when he had gotten so old and tired. He was only twenty-one – surely he should have more enthusiasm at this age? Some of the men behind him that cheered and beat their axes on their shields were nearly twice his age. Why did he have to feel so grim?

Perhaps it was the weight of Talos that lay so heavy on him, like the amulet around his neck.

Or perhaps it was his father.

...

Agata couldn't quell her excitement. She was trying to remind herself that this was serious, that she was going to war and might never return, but there was still a nervous butterfly in her chest that fluttered every time she thought about the fact that she was headed to Markarth. It was another kingdom now, but once it had been part of Skyrim, and it was still her city. Her home.

_Her _city. _Her_ home.

She hadn't been there since she was a wee girl, when her father died and her Nord mother had taken the children north to live with their grandparents on a small settlement near the old abandoned prison. During the Great War, her brothers had all marched south to fight and she hadn't seen any of them since; they'd had word that three of them died in Cyrodiil, but one had made it to Markarth and opened up a shop. Arnleif had written to her several times, telling her to come visit and meet his new wife and children, but there had always been some reason she couldn't make it – first she'd been training as a soldier and couldn't secure leave, then their mother had died and someone had to arrange the burial.

He hadn't made it back for that – his wife, Birgit, had been expecting their third child and he couldn't see leaving her at the time. Agata understood this, but was disappointed just the same. It seemed lame, somehow, to leave her alone the last four years and still not return for their mother's last rites. It had been pathetic, with just her standing alone at the Hall of the Dead, listening to the priestess of Arkay drone on and on, though the woman had barely known her mother.

She couldn't stay mad, though; it wasn't in her nature, not with travel from the Reach so dangerous – even in her memories, she wondered at the ability of the mountain goats to climb the rough terrain there.

Fastening on her armor this morning with the practiced ease of someone who wore it every day, she'd found herself hoping she could secure leave while they were in the city to find her brother's home and meet his wife and children. She wanted to see him again, to forgive him for leaving her and Mother, and to show him how well his baby sister had turned out. She hoped that the siege would be gentle on his family and that they were well-prepared and wouldn't be killed or reduced to eating rats.

She hoped they would be happy to see her.

In the cool morning, Agata whistled a tune to the beat of her footsteps, and she tried to fight her smile.

She was going _home._

_..._

The room was dark, lit only by flickering candles and firelight from one corner. It didn't matter; Bothela had attended enough births that she wasn't rattled by the poor position of this baby; he was coming out now if she had to reach in there and pull him out by his feet. The woman on the bed writhed in pain, moaning and panting, her voice a ragged wail.

"Stop all that crying and _breathe_," Bothela scolded her kindly, patting the poor woman's stomach. When the breathing under her hand had become more regular, the old woman checked again to see the progress of the baby and was pleased to see the mother fully dilated and ready to push. She nodded to her assistant, and the timid girl went off to fetch the hot, clean water from the kettle.

"Now we push," Bothela told the mother. The rest happened in a blur – the mother pushed for some time, and then there was a baby. There was the baby to clean up, the placenta to deliver, the sheets to dispose of and tinctures to administer. By the time Bothela and her assistant were ready to go, the sun was setting outside and the shadows of Markarth were long. The city was safer than it had been a few years ago, but still not an ideal place to wander around after dark, and if they didn't get headed out soon, they'd have to stay with this family for the night. Despite how much Bothela liked Birgit and her family, a house with three small children and a new baby was not where she wanted to spend the night.

With hugs all around and a small purse of gold passed to her by Arnleif and tucked into her belt, Bothela and the girl left for home. Their footsteps tapped out a rhythm on the cobblestones and echoed off the stone walls around them. They passed the Silver-Blood Inn and Bothela thought back to when she had been young, and unmarried, and spent her evenings there around the fire – it had been the Silver Mine Inn then, before the Silver-Blood family bought it. Before Bothela married Peric and began curing people, she'd had some reckless nights at that Inn. Peric hadn't come back from the war, and now she lived alone with the girl, her daughters grown and married and living their own lives.

Walking along the stream that ran through the city, she watched the water running so fast from her and reflected upon how quickly her time had gone by. Births always made her moody – somehow, more so than deaths – and the girl knew by now to be quiet while the old woman reflected.

Inside her home, everything was the same as when they'd left that morning. Bothela liked things in order, and while they'd left in a hurry – Birgit's labors were usually fast – all her herbs were still in their baskets, and supper was still bubbling over the fire. The girl hustled to the cabinet and pulled out two bowls as Bothela sagged into a chair. She pulled off her shoes and stretched her toes in the firelight. She'd lived all her life in Markarth and the dark stone rooms never made her claustrophobic.

Perhaps that was because of the dreams.

They'd gotten worse lately: gusts of wind blown by leathery wings, and an incoherent scream. The smell of rotten meat and sulfur on the breath of the great beast; the giant teeth, like needles, looming large above her. Trees burning, or lakes freezing – these visions haunted her as they always had. But somehow, in the last year, the dreams had become more frequent, more intense, more _real_. The world-eater flying above her, setting the world aflame –

But in Markarth, she'd be safe. In Markarth, the stone walls and floors and roves and beds made by those long-forgotten Dwemer would keep her and her family from burning. If the dragons came back – the dragons couldn't come back, they were long dead! – they could flee indoors and wait out the beasts.

Markarth had been built to resist attack. Its inhabitants would be safe.

With a sigh, Bothela began eating her bowl of stew, trying to push thoughts of mortality and dragons from her mind. She'd seen too much of the fringes of life, she sometimes thought, to think of much else.

...

Before they'd set out, Agata had not been on a march before. Tonight they camped on the banks of the White River, not far from Whiterun. As they'd passed the fork in the road that would lead to her home, she'd thought for a moment of setting out down that path, to stop at her mother's grave and say goodbye. Then, in seconds, she was too far to consider it and the time for second thoughts was gone.

She sat now at fireside with several others from her unit. They grouped around the campfire, their flimsy tents in a circle, their straw beds already rolled out and waiting. The thing that she found most surprising about the march was the mead: it was everywhere. Angrenor had been drunk since dawn and rambling about dark elves, as usual, and many of the others weren't far behind him. She'd waited until her tent was set up to find a mug and by then it hadn't been difficult – the drink was everywhere and a cup was practically shoved into her hand.

Ogmund was playing his lute now, and singing along in a fine baritone the old song about Ragnar the Red. His eyes seemed to twinkle at her in the firelight and she wondered if she was imagining the looks he seemed to be casting her way. Perhaps it was the mead playing tricks on her. She tried, discreetly, to check her reflection in the mug in her hand, but all she got was an impression of tangled strawberry hair and dust. She wasn't bad looking on her best day but now, with the scent of sweat clinging to her and covered in dirt, she couldn't imagine any man particularly wanting her, especially not Ogmund, who seemed to be covered in women at every turn. Her mother had always described Agata as "strong," which, while an apt term, didn't make her out to be any sort of beauty.

Besides, if she was to be taken seriously as a warrior, she shouldn't join another soldier in his bedroll. There was no shortage of female fighters in Skyrim, but they were still in the minority and there were some men who still thought that a good Nord woman belonged at home, tending the hearth and protecting the children.

Just the same, she thought somewhat drunkenly, it might be best if she cleaned up a bit. No one – male or female – wanted to be around someone as gamey as she was. She set down her mug and headed for her tent, where she dropped her sword belt and pulled off her armor. Armed with only a small knife and a sliver of soap, she grabbed a cloak and headed for the river, hoping to find a small bend hidden from the eyes of the other troops.

It didn't take her long to find what she was looking for: an oxbow fringed by trees. Away from the fires, the stars were obscured by the skylights. She waited for her eyes to adjust and, making sure no one appeared to be nearby, set her cloak, knife, and soap on the ground. She pulled her tunic over her head and let it drift into the water, joined shortly by her pants. Naked, she knelt in the stream and scrubbed her clothes, then laid them on a rock to dry. She turned back to the river and waded in, her skin prickling at the cool water.

Agata couldn't have told you how, exactly, she knew someone was there. Whether it was the snap of a twig underfoot, or a sixth sense she hadn't known about. Either way, she became suddenly, acutely, aware that she wasn't alone.

Fear crept in.

She turned and ran for the shore, for her knife. It was too late, because the big man was upon her before she could stop him. Even with the glow of the lights overhead, she couldn't see who it was, could only smell the stink of mead and unwashed skin as she kicked at him. She felt one foot connect with his pants and she flipped, scraping her side along the pebbles beneath her. With his weight off her for a long moment, she was able to scrabble for her knife.

But it wasn't enough. He recovered too quickly, punching her and sending her temple into the ground, where she banged her head on a rock. She bit her tongue, she tasted her own blood, hot and metallic.

She stabbed blindly, felt the knife cut skin and then disappear into the dark. He was back on her, his hands slick with blood but reaching for her breasts all the same. All her training, she thought, and still somehow this was her life. She was going to die in the dark, naked and bleeding and some unknown man's plaything.

It was then that she felt him move away from her. There was sudden lightness, a lifting of his weight, and she realized that there were two more people at the riverside. She couldn't see their faces but knew they were there by the black outlines they created against the night sky. Her head ached and was heavy on one side; she felt a tooth that had become loose during the fight.

A hand reached down and gently grasped her elbow, then slowly helped guide her to standing. Dizzy and exhausted, she spat blood on the ground and looked into the face of the man who'd saved her. It was a very long moment before she realized that it was the Ulfric, her commanding officer.

She tried to drop back to one knee, but he held her up. His voice was a rumble, a kingly whisper that held her in place as surely as his hands did.

"I will see to it that he is sent back to Windhelm. If you need to ride tomorrow, please see the quartermaster about a horse in the morning. Can you stand?"

For a long moment, Agata waited for the world to make sense again. Then, when she was sure up was up and down would stay there, she nodded. Her knees wobbled a little, then steadied. She felt his hands release her elbow.

"Ogmund will stand guard if you would like to finish bathing," the Jarl's son told her formally. She turned her head and saw the skald nearby, a knife in one hand. She felt Ulfric move away, then saw him grab her assailant and head back towards the camp.

A wave of shame overcame her. Not a half hour before, she'd been considering inviting Ogmund into her bed, and now here they were: she was beaten and bloody, naked and scared and defiant. It was almost embarrassing to consider the difference only a few minutes made. She would never want a man again.

"You would have had him," Ogmund said after a moment. "We just saved him from you."

And just like that, she fell in love with him.

...

Ulfric pushed the man through the bracken to the outskirts of the camp. Finally, near his tent, he paused and let the man – more a boy, really, for all his size – speak. The boy was familiar but not someone who had stood out. He was unremarkable, with dishwater hair and dull eyes. The long slash in his chest from the girl's knife wept blood, and Ulfric was pleased to see that while she had missed any internal organs, she had cut through a large area of muscle and this boy would be in a lot of pain for some time.

"I should have you killed," he said to the boy after a moment. "Attacking a fellow soldier is stupid and ill-considered. You are drunk and useless and I should put you to death."

There was the smell of urine as the boy shook in front of him. Ulfric felt a small ping of satisfaction deep in his gut. There was nothing more pathetic than a big man who couldn't stand up for himself.

"I should let her cut your balls off to ensure that you wouldn't try to rape again."

"Please, sir," the boy began babbling. "Angrenor was teasing me about never having had a woman and I'd had too much mead, and I'll never do anything like this again." There were tears running down his face. This close, Ulfric could see the minor wounds the woman's hands had left on him: the long scratches down one cheek, the bruise forming under his chin where her elbow had connected in their flailing. She was a sharp one, no doubt about that.

"You will go home to your mother," Ulfric told the boy. "You will go home and tell her what you've done and beg her forgiveness. If she forgives you, you will go to the Temple of Mara in Riften and make a donation. You will never attack a woman again."

"Yes, sir, I will sir," the boy was nearly incomprehensible in his fear.

"You will go now."

"Now?

"Now."

There was the sound of feet against dirt as the boy took off. A rustle of tree limbs, and he was gone, probably headed in the wrong direction.

Ulfric wondered for a moment if he had made the right decision. Perhaps he should have taken the boy's head – raping a fellow soldier was not something he should stand for. But the boy was young – perhaps only fourteen – and he'd been beaten fairly well by the girl he attacked. Perhaps a second chance was the right thing to do?

Perhaps the decision was wrong. Perhaps he would never know what would become of the boy. He wondered if his father ever second-guessed himself, then decided that Asmond didn't even know the meaning of the word. Asmond would have killed the boy without another thought, but Ulfric had been uncertain from the moment Ogmund came to tell him what was happening.

Talos forgive him, but since he'd left Elenwen's dungeon it was hard to believe anything. It seemed all his decisions could be catastrophic and it was only luck that kept them from being so.

Ulfric stepped back into his tent and pulled off his cloak. He dropped it unceremoniously onto a chair and sank into his bedroll to brood. He fell asleep sometime later, to the rustling of the tent flap and the sweet scent of new hay by his cheek.

...

Bothela woke in the middle of the night with a start. It had been the dreams again, the screaming of the dragons echoing off the stone walls so she couldn't tell where they began or ended, and the heat of fire all around her. The smell of burning meat, so pervasive she couldn't escape it.

She looked around the room, trying to gauge the time in the darkness. Perhaps she'd been asleep an hour, perhaps five; it was hard to tell in Markarth. She ran her fingers through her hair and thought of her daughters, in their homes outside the city walls, their children running about in small yards with chickens and goats. They would all be roasted in the flames, charred beyond recognition.

It took everything she had to sit still in the bed and not leap from it in fear and anguish, to run through the streets in her shift, screaming to everyone to hide, to run, that the dragons were coming.

But that was ridiculous: the dragons had been gone for generations. No one living had ever seen one, except in books or paintings. She'd heard once that there was a dragon skull in the Dragonsreach, in Whiterun, but Calcelmo had seen it once he told her (after several glasses of wine at the Inn) that he thought it was a fake and, in fact, doubted the existence of dragons at all.

"What are all the burial mounds, then, if not dragons?" She'd asked him.

"They're burial mounds, I'm sure, but who's to say there aren't men or horses or something else in there?" He'd replied before beginning another long lecture on the Dwemer and one of his theories on their disappearance. To hear him tell it, the long-dead elves were responsible for everything under the sun (and ground, for that matter), and she couldn't help but think that they weren't the answer to every question.

Besides, she was sure the dragons had been here once. They might not be anymore, but once they had flown the skies and something in her said they were returning.

She lay back down, her head pounding with the screams of children, and closed her eyes. It was the darker with her eyes closed, but just barely. With them open she could see the fire in the hearth, but that reminded her too much of dragonfire. Closed eyes were better.

She knew she was unlikely to sleep again, but lay there, hoping for sweet dreams.

...

Agata's ribs hurt beneath her armor as they began the second day of the march. Though Ulfric had offered her a horse, she chose to walk. Though she could have worn her helmet and hidden the large wound on the side of her head, she'd chosen instead to wear her injury proudly – or at least that was what she told herself when the rubbing made a helmet too uncomfortable.

Ogmund had sat with her the night before, on the banks of the White River, and waited for her to wash herself. Afterwards, he had brought her bandages and ointment for the gashes on her ribs. He offered to bandage her head, but she'd refused him; instead, she'd asked him to shave away the hair around the scab. He had nodded and gone to sharpen his knife.

In the morning light, she'd looked at the bare part of her head reflected in the water of the river. The bard had done a neat job of scraping away the hair on one side of her head. She braided a couple long braids along the edge of the bald side, giving her hair a bit of a style, and gave her reflection a grin. The motion hurt her ribs and the bruise blooming under her chin made the gesture more menacing than she felt. The scab was dark red and a single tear of blood traced its way behind her ear and down her neck.

Let them all see it, she thought. She turned away from the river and went back to her tent to finish armoring herself. Let them all see what happened on the march. And if she saw the man who attacked her, she knew she would finish the job she'd started the night before.

She would kill him.

He watched her march in the column. She had not come to the quartermaster to request a horse and, in fact, was still wearing her sword and shield on the march. He could pick her out easily by the large red laceration on the now-bald side of her head. He felt a tingle of pride at the stoutness of his soldiers.

To his right, Galmar had begun discussing strategies for the siege of Markarth. Should they starve them out? Burning the city to the ground was not an option with nothing but stone structures, and either way, Igmund would never stand for it. They'd start a second war if they tried to raze the city.

"Perhaps there is another way," Ulfric said, taking his eyes off the female soldier ahead of him and turning to his counselor. "Perhaps if we have someone who can get into the city and rally supporters, we could sneak in a few at a time, disguised as merchants or mercenaries. It will take time."

"Rout the city from the inside out," Galmar mused, his fat lips pursing into a smile. "I like it," he rasped, "but who do we start with?"

Ulfric had some ideas.


	2. The Ram

The Markarth Incident: The Ram

By: Veronica Lale

Disclaimer: Thanks Bethesda, for creating an immersive world. I've taken the basis for this story from the in-game book "The Bear of Markarth." Some characters from the game appear with fleshed-out back stories, and I've created some of my own to create a more full and compelling story. Reviews make it better, so be sure to leave feedback.

* * *

Igmund couldn't help but feel impatient. After two years – two years! – of watching that pretender sit on what should have been his throne, there was finally progress. Perhaps by the year's end he would return to his stone city and his father to the great stone chair.

It had taken agreements with all sorts of unsavory types to gather enough shields to take back the Reach. He paced inside Dead Man's Drink in Falkreath, several days' journey from home, where he'd spent far too long, plotting and thinking and hating the taint that even now spread over the Mournful Throne. Hopefully once they'd taken the seat of the hold back, the renegades would fall in line, or at least flee to the hills to be exterminated one by one.

Ulfric was the worst of those they'd treated with. It was Ulfric that would be their downfall, Igmund was sure of it. He remembered the other Jarl's son from the siege in Cyrodiil, a rash bull of a boy with long blonde hair and a wispy beard. It had been his foolhardy plan that got the boy captured by the elves, and now it was his condition that Talos worship be allowed in the Reach or he would withdraw his troops. Igmund had never been sure of Talos – of the Divines, he was the newest and therefore the most questionable – and he tried to be cautious in his devotions.

Seven hundred swords. Seven hundred swords without which Hrolfdir and his son would never re-take the Mournful Throne. Seven hundred swords - and Ulfric's knowledge of the Voice.

It had been an easy decision to make, despite the foul taste it left in his mouth and how difficult it was to broker. Igmund had gone with his father to the Imperial City to treat with the Empire while Raerek stayed in Falkreath Hold with their displaced troops, fighting skirmishes with the usurper Madanach's fanatics. Raerek told him later that the fighters he'd seen painted their faces with blood, and their eyes were wild with magic. They'd used blades and spells alike and moved with an unnatural speed and grace. Much as Igmund loved and trusted his uncle's judgment, he wondered whether the aging steward was exaggerating. The older man's eyes weren't what they had once been and he'd never been much of a fighter – probably he was mistaken.

Alone in his room in the inn, Igmund felt the impatience rising within him again. There was no doubt in his mind that they would win this fight over Madanach; the man was a usurper and a heretic, no matter how formidable his radicals were, and it was Igmund's family who belonged on the Mournful Throne.

He was debating whether to sit at the small table to continue his battle plan or to head outside and spar with some of his men when the knock sounded at his door. He turned, wrenched the door open, and was faced with an out-of-breath courier shocked into silence by the ferocity of his liege's expression.

"My lord," the courier began after a moment. "They're nearly here now. Ulfric and his men. They'll be here within the hour."

It was a grim smile that creased Igmund's face.

…

The thing about Ulfric's Thu'um was that, while it was very impressive for one who was not dragonborn, it was not nearly as powerful as the legends implied. To hear the bards tell it, Ulfric could part the Sea of Ghosts if he wanted to. After enough pints, the songs made out that he could use his Thu'um to shout Secunda down from the heavens. While he had never attempted this feat, he was fairly certain he wouldn't be able to do this.

While he knew none of this to be true, Ulfric had allowed the stories to go on for a reason: if all of Skyrim thought he could do these things, he was less likely to have to prove it. No one would stand against him if they thought he could shout the skin from their bones. It was this thought that nagged at him as he dismounted his horse outside the city of Falkreath. It was possible, it now occurred to him, that Igmund might expect him to shout the soldiers down from the walls of Markarth and take the city in an hour. Igmund might expect to be back in his uninviting stone castle before nightfall.

He let out a brief sigh and made his way down the narrow streets. There was a carpet of pine needles under his feet and the smell of the trees was everywhere. He'd heard a story once that said that Falkreath smelled of the dead, but every time he'd been here, all he could smell was pine. Galmar followed behind him, with Agata and Ogmund in tow. It hadn't taken long for him to convince Agata of the surety of his plan, of the high chance of success. Her only concern had been that her brother's family – shopkeepers of some sort inside the city – be kept safe.

"So long as they do not resist me," he had told her, "I will spare any who do not resist the return of Hrolfdir to his throne."

Igmund and Hrolfdir stood on the veranda outside the inn door, as alike as brothers. Hrolfdir seemed much younger than his fifty or so years, and Igmund had always seemed older to Ulfric, more like an elder than a man in his twenties. Perhaps it was the superior expression the son wore, while Hrolfdir greeted everyone as an equal. While their expressions were different, their faces were the same, and the way they stood as they waited on his approach – one hand on their swordbelt, heads cocked to the left.

Hrolfdir smiled and took Ulfric's hands in his own. "It is good to see you again, Ulfric. We are most glad of your arrival. We are sorry to hear of your father's ill health."

"Thank you," Ulfric replied. "Wuunferth is doing all that he can, but there isn't much left that may help. Mostly he tries to help with the pain, these days. It won't be long before Father goes to Sovngarde."

"And how is your new wife?"

"Well enough. Hopefully she will have a son for me when I return home," Ulfric smiled a little at the thought of it. A son would be something.

Behind Hrolfdir, Ulfric could see Igmund's face tightening. It was clear from the way the muscles in his shoulders tensed that the man was becoming impatient even with these pleasantries. The sooner they could meet, the sooner Ulfric could take his leave and head back to his tent in the camp outside the city. It would be safer there, more comfortable.

He wouldn't have to worry about deciphering the look Igmund was giving him right now.

"Tell me of your plans," he said, turning to Igmund. "How have you considered approaching the city?"

"Come inside," Igmund said with a hint of a smile, "and I will show you what I've considered."

…

Agata had never once considered that she might part of a war council. It was exciting. They sat in a basement room in Dead Man's Drink, a warm fire crackling at one end and the Jarls' sons moving wooden pieces over a map of the Reach. To her left, Galmar crunched on the bones of a roast bird like a dog; to her right, Ogmund's leg pressed against hers under the table. She tried to ignore it, to focus on what was happening between the nobles before her. A wedge of cheese sat untouched next to her barely-eaten venison stew – she couldn't think of eating, not now, not with what was happening before her.

"So they're still allowing in merchants?"

"Some, yes. Not all. It's easiest to get in if one is vouched for by a trusted ally. It's a stone city and a rocky hold – it can be difficult to get enough food in the city so no one starves. From what I understand, most of the citizens have been rationing for a while, but even bread only keeps so long before it molds." This was a Reachman speaking, a spy from the city. She realized, watching him speak, how much he resembled her brothers, although shorter where they'd all been tall, but with the same reddish hair and slight build, the same fair skin and freckles.

"So this one will go in as a merchant with a cart full of wares and family in the city?" Hrolfdir seemed delighted by this prospect.

"I still don't understand why you can't simply shout the guards down from their posts," from Igmund. The look on his face as he turned to Ulfric would melt the skin from his bones if he'd had that power.

"No man living has a Thu'um that strong," Ulfric rumbled with a low chuckle. "That's only in stories."

She couldn't be sure from this angle, but the look Igmund gave Ulfric seemed very dark and full of loathing.

"So the troops will travel in small groups or pairs with supplied into the city, posing at merchants," Galmar broke it. "They will find allies where they can and stay in the city whenever possible. Then, when we attack, they will fight from the inside and help us take back the city."

"It is a solid plan. I see no reason why it shouldn't work if we are patient," Hrolfdir said with a sigh of satisfaction. "And it should help save my people from the worst of the destruction. They cannot be blamed for avoiding violence whenever they could."

"Madanach is mine," Igmund said abruptly. "If possible, this…pretender should be left for me. I would see him in shackles."

Agata thought she could detect a hint of a frown on the Jarl's face. "Very well, my son," Hrolfdir's voice was nearly a whisper. "If you think it is necessary to treat the man so harshly, I will defer to you on this. But it is as important to be seen as merciful as it is to be unopposed."

…

The camp seemed to stretch forever, the glimmer of campfire between the trees and the sound of snoring in the tents. Between the shadow of the Throat of the World and the thickness of the pines, the dawn sun could barely be seen and instead the woods seemed to glow with early morning light. The air was humid, heavy.

It had been too long since Ogmund had been this far south.

Born on the southern shores of Lake Ilinalta, he'd gotten out as soon as he could and traveled Skyrim, looking for adventure. After a couple years, he'd landed at the Bard's College, which had opened even more doors for him. A few years there, and he'd been able to travel all of Tamriel, learning songs and stories and performing wherever people would let him. Some years had been lean, but others fat as he performed for Jarls and Lords and even – just once! – for the Mane of the Khajiit.

The last ten years or so he'd stayed in Windhelm, performing at Candlehearth Hall and heading down to the Grey Quarter at night to drink with the dark elves. They'd welcomed him though they distrusted most Nords, and even allowed him to sing sometimes. It was lonely sometimes, but the aging bard found that he liked the comfort of a real bed instead of the hard ground.

He'd forgotten what the south was like. He'd forgotten the specific rustle of pine branches in the leaves, and the way the light filtered down in the midafternoon, pale and golden and glinting green. He'd forgotten the scent of pine grass in the years in Windhelm, when all there was to smell was the sterile cold of snow and, on warmer days, the stench of rotten fish from the middens around the city.

Rolling up his tent for easy storage on the wagon, Ogmund found he didn't want to leave. This was where he was born and now he wondered if this was where he was meant to die.

Every thought of staying in the wilds of Falkreath faded when he approached the wagon. Packing their goods for trade in the back of the wagon was Agata. Dressed today as a simple merchant, she wore a dress instead of armor with only a dagger at her hip; but for the scab on the side of her head, he would never have suspected her as a soldier. She moved well enough and with purpose, but it was the memory of her from that night by the White River, angry and naked and unstoppable that still haunted him.

There was a song in there, somewhere. A story.

Perhaps it was this that had dragged him from Windhelm with the rest of the volunteer soliders: this woman with her knife and her dignity, so he could tell her story to the rest of the world. Ogmund had sung songs of love and passion and he had spent many nights with many different women (there were perks to being a bard, after all), but he'd never felt this uncertain flutter at the mere sight of a woman before. In his forty-third summer, and this was the first time he'd found himself wondering what to say to hold her attention.

It was ridiculous.

He stepped up beside her and grabbed a barrel of mead, lifting it over one shoulder. Stop showing off, you old fool, he told himself with a slight shake of the head. She's a young woman and hardly likely to be impressed by such a show.

But was she? There was a hint of a grin on her face as she turned away from him to grab a basket of onions.

The Ballad of Agata the Shield-Maid had a lovely ring to it, after all.

…

Igmund handed the woman a purse of gold. It was a small one, meant to get them to Markarth with few stops and no farther – just sending in a few people at a time with wagons of goods would cost the throne a fortune in the end, but he could see no other option than to fling troops at the stone walls and watch them die.

He felt his face tighten in a grimace at the thought.

"You have family in the city, girl?" His father spoke to his left. The young woman nodded. She was an odd choice for this assignment – he'd never seen a woman who looked more like a warrior, with her tall stature and half-shaven head. The other side of her scalp was a tangle of reddish hair, some in braids. A fading bruise adorned her chin, and her knuckles were raw. No one would believe this one a merchant.

"My brother, sir," she said softly. Her voice was musical, though, and her accent familiar. She sounded Reach-born, for all that her height suggested Nordic heritage. "He owns a shop of some sort, but I've never seen it."

"Well then, I hope you find him in good health. Send a letter out with Alasdair when you get settled so that we know that you are safe. We'll get a message to you when we can," Hrolfdir gestured to the Reachman from the day before, the spy. Igmund didn't trust him either – the spy's information was too good. Perhaps he'd already been bought by the other side. Perhaps they were sending this girl and the older man going with her into a trap, to their deaths.

If so, at least it was only two fighters going, instead of all of them.

In almost no time at all, the wagon had set off on its slow trudge towards Markarth. Igmund felt his temper rising up inside of him again, the rage that made him want to scream and smash something into a wall. He should_ be _there, he should be on the march, he should be sitting on the Mournful Throne already. None of this was going the way it should, it was all spies and secrets and sneaking around. He was a straightforward man and not skilled at subterfuge. He was meant to charge in, wrest control from the usurper, and rule.

But he was not Jarl yet, and it was his father's decision to try this more subtle tactic.

Frustrated, impotent, Igmund stood in the pines and watched the wagons go.

…

The road to Markarth started west, then turned north, then west again. Alasdair knew all this from looking at the map, but in practice, he found it difficult to tell which direction they were headed in. He normally traveled from the Solitude ports with goods from other parts of Tamriel, and so they would head north towards Rorikstead, then west to Karthwasten and back south and west to Markarth – he hoped this approach from the north would make it seem that he had made his usual trip and would not alert anyone to anything unusual.

The last thing he needed was for a guard to get suspicious or think that, perhaps, he had been anywhere near Falkreath. Even the goods they carried in the back of the wagon were more exotic goods (although in this case brought by way of Windhelm instead of Solitude).

The horse's feet clacked along the cobblestones at a slow pace, and Alasdair tried to remember that he was just a merchant going to his home to sell some goods and see his family – but this thought brought him too close to the thought of his young wife at home and their baby daughter, and his old father, blind and cranky in his stone chair by the fire.

Thinking of Markarth was no comfort, and neither was thinking of his family. The fear sat in the pit of his stomach, leaden and strong.

He'd had no good reason for helping the deposed Jarl. He actually liked Madanach's rule, and found things to be more peaceful and pleasant in the city since the Reachman King had come to power. No longer did he worry at night when he walked the streets with a purse full of gold; even in the hills, he didn't need to fear bandits attacking the wagon and taking all he had.

A wiser man would have found a way out of this situation, but Hrolfdir had gone to Solitude to plead for aid, and it had been outside the city walls that Alasdair had run into him.

"I know you," the old man had said. "You bring the spiced wine that we serve on feast days. You trade in Markarth."

There was something pleading about the Jarl's eyes, something that made the merchant pause. In that moment, he was lost.

Igmund, of course, was something else entirely. Alasdair was a soft touch for the old Jarl and found himself in this position because he couldn't stand the idea of the elder spending his last few years in exile, living in an inn next to a stinking cemetery. But his son, with his flashing eyes and his abrupt manner – there was something about the younger man that made him nervous. There was something that made Alasdair convinced that no plan involving Igmund would end the way it was supposed to.

He'd tried to find ways out – he'd talked with his father for hours on end before he left the city this last time, trying to find a way to escape this deal. It all seemed so reasonable at home, by the fire, with his wife and child asleep in the next room, but when he'd reached Solitude, he'd somehow taken the road to Falkreath instead.

He was a guide. That was all. That was where his involvement would end, Alasdair told himself. He turned and looked at the wagon behind him. The man held the horse's reins, and the woman beside him stared off into the pines.

He would take them to the city. He would get them in.

And then he was getting out.

…

Agata watched the pines go by in a swirl of branches and needles.

"I grew up near here," Ogmund said, breaking the silence. Neither of them had spoken since the wagons had departed. In fact, they hadn't spoken since that night on the riverbank.

She'd watched him, though, moving around the camp with purpose. In watching him, she'd seen that he took the tasks no one else wanted: he gathered firewood when it was low, he removed the fish scales and took them to the midden heap. He wasn't just some man with a lute: Ogmund did what was needed without asking or fanfare.

She found this admirable.

"Really? Where?"

"To the north and east a little, on the lake. My parents fished. We lived off the land, mostly," he gave the horse its lead and leaned back in the seat a little. Ahead of them, the horse wandered along the narrow track through the trees.

"Sounds nice."

"It was. Peaceful. Maybe that's why I always thought my future held a sword and a song," he laughed after a moment. "Perhaps I should have stuck with fishing."

Ahead of them, she could hear bird songs stop at the wagon ahead of them trudged on. "How far do you think we are from Markarth?"

"A few days, possibly longer. We'll probably stop at Rorikstead tonight, but I don't know if we should head to Solitude and then take the long way south. Mayhap it would be safer, and there are a lot of people about the edges of the Reach these days who might choose to share where we came from."

Long moments passed, and then he lifted his voice into song.

"Oh, there once was a hero named Ragnar the Red,

Who came riding to Whiterun to Old Rorikstead…"

…

The Silver-Blood Inn was dark in the corners, and when Bothela settled herself into a chair by the fire, it took a while before anyone approached her. Not only was it dark, but no one noticed old women anyway. The girl who came to bring her a mug of frothy ale was small and pale and sickly-looking; by the old woman's estimate, the girl wouldn't live out the year. It wouldn't be any one thing that killed her, or at least no great disease. Like enough, it would be malnutrition that did it. The Silver-Bloods didn't pay enough to their managers and therefore the girl they'd pulled off the streets to deliver drinks couldn't possibly make enough to live off.

It was some time before her daughter joined her at the fireside. Alys was slim and pale with her mother's dark red hair. She had a spattering of freckles across her nose and a small frame. She wore a shapeless green dress and had a smudge of something below her left eye, but somehow she was still the most stunningly beautiful woman most anyone had ever seen. It was hard for her to anywhere without people staring, and tonight was no exception. Bothela thought for a moment that if she were to try to meet her daughter again privately, the girl had best wear a hood to avoid the staring.

Alys smiled, a white toothy grin that made everyone in a five foot radius feel more comfortable. She had the baby strapped to her chest, as usual. Though he was already seven months old, Odvan was always with her because Alys could not bear to be parted from the baby. She'd cried for weeks after he was born, and Bothela worried. Eventually, though, the tears had stopped, but she never saw her younger daughter without the boy anymore. It seemed impossible for her to set him down, let alone go anywhere without him.

This included a secret meeting about their futures.

"Hello, mother," her daughter said formally, giving Bothela a kiss on the cheek. "How are you?"

"Ah, you know I worry about you and the babe outside the city," the older woman said, trying to smile, to make it a joke and not the real worries of a mother.

"You know Geoff won't even consider giving up the mine to head closer to the city," her daughter deflected cheerfully. "Without it, we'd have no income at all."

"I just wish you'd move to the city, dear," Bothela nearly cut her daughter off. "It's safer here. The walls are stone. There's no chance of your family being set to flame."

"Mother, we'll be fine."

Bothela looked at her daughter's smile and wished she had the same faith.

…

The Frostfruit Inn was smaller than expected. A boy of two or three played on the hearth, his red hair glinting in the firelight. Alasdair took one room, and Ogmund was assigned another. Counting out coins from their purse, Agata began to get nervous. She wondered if the merchant would make them go all the way to Solitude before heading back down the south road. She doubted she would have enough coin to last the whole trip.

When Ogmund had disappeared from sight, she ordered an ale instead of another room. She could drink this by the fire – perhaps they'd have a roast fowl to go with it, as well – and that would keep her warm all night in the wagon.

And someone should help protect the wares…right?

It was mere moments before Ogmund came back to the common area, his lute in his hand. The townspeople were visibly glad to have a bard visiting, and before long, she'd lost count of how many were waving coins at him in the hopes that he would play their requested song. She watched him raptly, his face lit by firelight and alive with the joy of singing for a crowd.

There was something special about that bard – the twinkle in his eyes, the quick way his fingers moved over the lute strings. Perhaps it was the way he spoke with the crowd?

Perhaps it was him, perhaps it was her – perhaps it was the mead. Whatever it was, she couldn't explain it later when he headed back to his room and she was waiting at the door.

Inside had seemed too forward. Not being at his door seemed not forward enough.

"Hello," he said to her.

She leaned in to kiss him. He tasted of honey from the mead the serving girl had brought him a half hour ago. His lips were warm, soft. It occurred to her that while she had kissed a man, she'd never been so incredibly aware of the individual sensations.

Then she could feel his chest against hers. Stripped of their armor, wearing a tunic and a dress, she could feel him in a way she hadn't considered. Leaning against his doorframe with his body leaning into hers and the crackle of fire in her ears, it occurred to her that she'd never felt so alive.

Her every part had never been so _awake_.

After a long moment, he moved his lips away. His eyes met hers; they were grey with golden lights in them, and they danced like fire.

And then he pulled her into his room.

…

Ogmund woke up bathed in light. With only a flimsy sheet of fabric across the window, the light still fell across the inn bedroom and lit the room. Against him, on the narrow bed, lay Agata. She was naked from the waist up, and pressed against him. Her hair lay in pink tendrils all around them, curling across his chest and into the place where her head lay on his stomach.

There as a clean, piney smell to her. It lingered in the room; it reminded him of juniper berries.

It reminded him of home.

…

The throne was hard as a wall beneath him. To Madanach's left sat his wife, Siobhan, her belly swollen with the baby due at any time. To his right was Borkul, his orcish face impassive in the dim light of the keep.

He would never get used to Understone – as the name implied it was, indeed, under stone. Its every piece of furniture was cold and unforgiving, and it was almost impossible to know what time of day it was from inside the building. There were times where Madanach had to run for the hills, leaving the safety of the city to feel closer to the Divines, to the Aedra and the Daedra alike. The sky was so big, and the castle closed it out so completely.

Beneath him, behind him, the stone of the Mournful Throne was hard and unyielding and cold as ice.


	3. King of the Reach

The Markarth Incident: The King of the Reach

By: Veronica Lale

Disclaimer: Thanks Bethesda, for creating an immersive world. I've taken the basis for this story from the in-game book "The Bear of Markarth." Some characters from the game appear with fleshed-out back stories, and I've created some of my own to create a more full and compelling story. Reviews make it better, so be sure to leave feedback.

* * *

Madanach hated the damn chair.

For all the good he felt he did because of it, the Mournful Throne was a loathsome place for him to sit. Made of stone, it was cold and hard and seemed to hold a lingering dampness that crept into his bones when he sat on it for more than a few minutes. He'd spread some furs across it, but they slid and somehow he would consistently end up with the furs crooked and the hateful stone against him. It wasn't kingly to fidget, and so he'd sit there with an angry look on his face, counting the minutes until he was done hearing petitions.

Today was no different: somehow, the goatskin he'd placed on the seat of the throne had shifted and one half of his ass was warm and snug and the other was pressed against the frozen marble. Here in this grim castle with no light and the faint hiss of Dwemer machinery from Nchaund-Zel, he strained to keep himself on the throne and not pacing before the petitioners.

Alasdair, a merchant he'd seen before, stood before him with a girl and a middle-aged man. He said the girl had family in the city and was beginning her own trade, that she'd come with a cart of goods for sale. She had the look of a Reachwoman, with her strawberry curls and bright eyes, and she was tall and strong. He could see a resemblance between her and many of the people in the city.

"And who will you be visiting while you are here?"

"Arnleif and Birgit over in the marketplace, your grace," she responded. Her voice had the lilt of a Reachlander, too – a musical quality that cemented his belief in her. "I heard on the streets that they've just had another baby as well, and I might like to stay and see if I can help out while Birgit gets back on her feet."

"A noble idea," Madanach nodded. "I think that would be acceptable. And you, bard, why are you here?"

The man beside the girl was difficult to pin down at a glance. He was a Nord and Madanach was loathe to let any more of their kind in the city. While he didn't think one or two were likely to cause trouble, a Nord in armor made him nervous – even if the man's sword was on his hip because there was a lute on his back.

"I go with my heart," the bard said after a long moment, his voice ringing clearly against the stone walls. He turned to the girl when he said this, and took her hand. A smile moved fleetingly across her lips.

To his left, Madanach felt more than saw his wife smile. She was a sentimental one.

"I suppose we can allow you stay then, Nord, but you will not seek to overturn Reachman rule during your tenure here," Madanach said after a long pause. "I will expect to see you return to me at Harvest's End so we can discuss you future in the Reach."

The two new people nodded, then left at the wave of Madanach's hand. Behind them were more petitioners, seeking to cement a claim they'd made to a newly discovered silver vein to the north of the city, and after them a farmer from the fringes who suspected Nords from Haafingar of poaching his sheep.

It never ended, and while he was glad the Reachmen were governing themselves – finally! – Madanach couldn't help but wonder if he'd made the right decision to take the seat himself. There had been other men who'd wanted it – younger men, stronger men – but in the end, the Hagraven Drascua had looked up from her scrying crystal and told the assembly that it was to be Madanach who sat on the throne.

None of them would argue with her. Drascua was rarely wrong, and those who defied her predictions regretted it.

And so Madanach sat, forcing himself to dispense wisdom over a thousand tiny injustices, and wondered what it looked like outside.

…

"Sister!" Arnleif was as she remembered him – big and strong and red-faced. His beard had come in more thickly and the hair on his head had receded. He wore a rough linen shirt and an apron and a smile, and when he hugged her, she could smell the mint leaves he still chewed to sweeten his breath. The memory of watching him collect the leaves from a plant outside their window flooded her senses, and she felt a pang of sadness for their long-departed childhood. Instead, Agata smiled and hugged her brother back. Behind her brother, the shop was full of curious merchandise and various dry goods: flour and eggs, pawned silver and mysterious bottles of cloudy liquids.

"What a delightful shop you have, brother," she commented, looking about, her eyes grown big with wonder at the life he had made for himself. "And a wife, and children as well, then?"

"Indeed! They're all upstairs for now. The local healer is looking in and her girl is helping get some bread in the oven. And," he looked past her to the door, "Who is this fine fellow?"

Ogmund stepped forward and introduced himself. "I didn't want to interrupt," he added. "I know it has been quite a long time since you two have seen each other."

The three of them made their way upstairs to the living quarters above the shop. It was a riot of noise and color with three children under five running about. In the main room, a dark-haired slip of a girl was chopping vegetables by the fireplace; through a narrow door, Agata saw a woman seated in a bed, a baby at her breast.

Arnleif's wife's eyes lit up when she saw Agata. The older woman leaning over her scolded the young mother to lean back and hold still another moment, but Agata could see from the expression on Birgit's face how happy she was to see her new sister. She was a small woman, dark haired and thin-faced.

There was a flurry of introductions and names to learn – Colette, the oldest girl, with red braids, and Sybil, her sister, with a halo of golden frizz around her face, and Myrna, the youngest daughter, who toddled about in bare feet and said not a single discernable word but babbled ceaselessly. Finally, there was the baby, Bjorn, who was pink and round and slept through all the racket.

After they'd all eaten and Agata and Ogmund had washed off the dust from the road, she sat by the fire. The children had been taken by their father to bed, one by one, and now Arnleif and his wife were closed up in their room. The healer and her assistant had long since left and Agata sat quietly with a mug of ale on a newly-made straw bed. Beside her, Ogmund was warm, and he smelled of new leather.

She found herself brooding. In her excitement to get to the city and see her long-lost brother, she realized now that she'd forgotten what she was signing up for. Their audience with Madanach this morning should have driven the point home, but everything had been so breathtakingly easy. No one had questioned presence in the Reach or their desire to stay in Markarth.

But this…finding sympathetic townspeople to turn against the rebellion? She was no spy. She had no idea how to find these people, or how to communicate what she wanted from them.

Ogmund's finger traced its way down her spine, laconic and warm. She turned and met his eyes.

"We'll find them," he told her after a long moment. "Before long, we'll find them, and then we'll be done with this mission."

It was funny how he knew what to say to make her feel more at ease, but it was better when he kissed her.

…

No one had told Ulfric that the Emperor's emissary would sit in on their next council. Inside, he was livid – this man was the mouthpiece for the damn fool who agreed to the White-Gold Concordat, who had been coerced or tricked into giving up Talos and turning the backs of the entire Empire on one of the Nine. Ulfric's amulet of Talos was cool against his skin inside his tunic, a constant reminder of this, and it seemed to chill further when the emissary entered the room.

On the outside, Ulfric leaned back from the table and kept his face impassive. It wouldn't do to lose his cool, not in front of Igmund and his father, and not in front of the emissary. The Emperor would hear all about this meeting, and Ulfric's feelings about the Thalmor, Talos, the Concordat, all of it were well known enough – if it was heard that he handled the meeting poorly, he might well become something of a laughing stock.

It was better to wait and see what would happen.

Besides, the emissary had begun to sweat when Ulfric brought up Talos. This was, at the very least, amusing.

"I don't think we can agree to allow Talos worship in Skyrim," the thin Imperial stuttered. He had a moustache like a caterpillar; Ulfric wondered if it would come off all in one long strip if pulled. "The White-Gold Concordat clearly states –"

"But surely the Empire understands that we cannot allow the traitor Madanach to maintain control over our hold," Igmund cut in. "A deal had to be made. The Empire simply has not sent enough men for us to take back the Mournful Throne."

This was true – the Empire had sent up a paltry fifty spearmen and a hundred archers. These fighters would certainly be helpful, but against the defenses of Markarth and an entrenched rebellion, it was a laughably undersized contribution. Ulfric would have been insulted too, if he were Igmund. It was one of few things upon which he and the detestable troll could agree.

The emissary had a sour, thin-lipped expression. The room was silent for a long moment, but for the crackling of the fire in the hearth. A small bead of sweat made its way down the man's cheek, like a tear. He licked his thin lips.

Finally: "We'll have to find a way to make it work, I suppose. The Thalmor will not be happy."

Ulfric suppressed a smile. As if he cared what the Thalmor thought? He'd given up wanting to please them the first time Elenwen had pulled out her thin dagger and held it to the tip of his left thumb. The Thalmor would never be pleased until they ruled over all Tamriel, just as Elenwen hadn't been sated until she had broken him.

The only way to win against their enemies was by being stronger and outlasting them, and Ulfric had no intention of failing.

…

Ogmund sat by the hearth, tuning his lute. Around him, the bustle of the Silver-Blood Inn made its own music – the staccato of feet on the creaking floorboards, the metallic clinking of mugs of ale or mead, the rising and falling laughter of patrons. It was good to be in an inn again, to be plying his trade even as he tried to begin to blend into the city.

Of course, he would never entirely blend in, not while the Reachmen were in charge and most of the wealthy native Nords were imprisoned in Cidhna Mine. He knew most of them would be natural allies to Ulfric's militia, but how could he possibly get in there to see them, to arm them, or to free them?

In the meantime, Ogmund stood nearly a head taller than most of the people he saw on the streets, and was broader of shoulder. He stood out like a sore thumb, in his fine leather armor, as the only people out there who wore armor were renegades, and those dressed as barbarians in clumsily-stitched leather and furs.

He had been to Markarth once before, but it had to be nearly twenty years ago, when he'd only just left the Bards College. It seemed both the same and vastly different now, but perhaps that was how things were when it had been so long since you'd seen them. Perhaps the city was different, or maybe it was just his perspective that had changed.

Each night, he came to the inn and played for a few hours. Afterwards, he sat by the fire and spoke with whoever would stop by. At some point in the wee hours, he'd head back to Arnleif's, his purse full of new septims.

Sometimes Agata would join him, but she was different these days, jumpy and nervous. The girl from the road was diminished somehow – she was anxious and beneath her eyes were black hollows. When he'd asked her earlier what was wrong, she'd nearly leaped out of her skin and gone to hide. For some reason, she'd chosen tonight to join him. Instead of talking, though, she sat in the corner and drank cup after cup of ale. She stared in the fire, a blank look upon her face, the reflection of the fire dancing in her eyes.

Tonight, bent over his lute, he spoke with Marek. A wiry Redguard in a heavy green turban, Marek was someone he saw every three days or so. It seemed to him that a native Reachman was unlikely to turn on Madanach, but a Nord might – or perhaps this Redguard, who had lived in Skyrim most of his life. It was tonight that Marek said something that Ogmund would mark as progress.

"You might want to try the Warrens," he said over a cup of mead. "There are more of…_your_ kind down there. That might be the place to find what you seek."

Marek winked, subtle and possibly toying with him. Ogmund didn't know whether to be annoyed or pleased. "What is this Warrens?"

"Across from the silver mine," Marek continued, "There is a sad ruin. Inside live all the Nords and the sympathizers that weren't put to death or to work in Cidhna. They didn't kill them all." The Redguard gave him a sly smile, stood, and belched, then headed back to the counter for a refill.

Tomorrow he would go to the Warrens, then, to see if he could find anyone who might stand against Madanach at the appointed hour.

…

It was the change of plans that irked Igmund. He stood before his father – not just his father, his liege lord – with what he knew to be a dumbfounded expression.

"You wish to treat with the usurper?"

"Yes."

"But you have nothing! What is there to offer him?"

There was a long silence from his father as the old man considered this. It was true, wasn't it? What could he possibly offer Madanach that the foul pretender didn't already have? High Kingship of Skyrim? The Emperor's Crown? A position with the Thalmor?

No, Madanach wasn't some fishwife making wishes: he wanted the Reach and he had it, and nothing Hrolfdir could do or say would prevent the usurper from killing him if that was what it took for the little deviant to keep the Reach.

"I have to try. If it will prevent more of our people from being put to death, I have to try."

"But we have Ulfric and his troops, and the militia from the Empire! We can win this!" His father couldn't possibly be serious. Heading into Markarth would be certain death for the Jarl. It was known that the rebels had killed a large number of prominent Nords and imprisoned others. The fate of many more was completely unknown, but Igmund assumed most of them had died through execution, torture, or starvation. That was just the way it went.

"And you may need them all yet. Perhaps I can save this – but perhaps I can only get the soldiers through the gate." His father wore an expression Igmund had never seen before – he looked resigned. "If I can help, I will, but I am serving no one sitting in this damned inn half a world away," Hrolfdir said, a note of frustration creeping into his voice. "Least of all the people of the Reach."

Igmund said nothing.

"They deserve stability. They deserve peace. I cannot give them that from here."

"I will go with you," Igmund finally said.

"_You_ will stay out of the city. You will stay with the bulk of the troops in case things go wrong."

"No."

"Yes. What if I should be wrong, and they kill me?" It was a terrible thought; Igmund tried to push it out of his mind but his father pressed on. "If you are with me, they will kill us both –"

"I will stop them."

His father laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle that stung.

"Oh, you wear the beard of a man, my son, but you are still a boy in so many ways," Hrolfdir said. "You, against all the renegades? We shall both end up in Sovngarde sooner rather than later."

Again, Igmund said nothing.

"We must keep you safe, so that when we re-take the city there is someone to rule." There was a new expression on the old Jarl's face. It was resignation.

…

It had been two months. Agata sat, her head in her hands, and wondered how she could have let this happen. She'd never expected, when they set off from Falkreath, to make such a mockery of her assignment. She'd let down her commanding officer – the son of her Jarl - and she'd failed her task, and now she was going to have to find a way to care for a baby.

What she'd discovered in staying with Arnleif and his wife was that children were a nightmare. They were always in the way. They couldn't be left alone for even a few moments without possibly setting fire to the house or themselves (she understood now the appeal of stone furniture). They screamed when they didn't get their way, and the baby cried constantly. Birgit seemed somehow immune and called the little thing sweet pet names, but Agata had no idea how she could possibly be a mother when just the thought of the baby made her consider jumping from one of the many stone abutments in Markarth.

When she tried to think of the siege to come, all she could wonder was if it would happen while her armor still fit, or if she would be so sick that she couldn't hold her sword. It seemed she was always running to the privy to vomit, as if she was sick from too much ale. She was of no help to Birgit and she never left her soft cushion at the fireside. She couldn't seem to find the energy to talk to the people of Markarth, though Ogmund encouraged her to visit the Nords in the Warrens with him. She hated to stay in but couldn't bring herself to go out.

She spent endless days by the fire, staring into the flames or at the wall or out the window and wondering who would execute her – Madanach for lying and supposedly inciting trouble, or Ulfric for failing in her duties?

And who would take care of the baby then?

She was going to be sick.

…

Madanach stared at the note in his hand. A courier had brought it earlier this afternoon, pressed it into his hand and then left without taking any coin; he'd scurried from the room as if the message would burst aflame and consume them all. It had been very suspicious.

When he opened it, Madanach understood why. It was from Hrolfdir, asking to treat. Obviously it was meant to be some sort of trap. There was no way the old man could be as dim as to think that Madanach thought he needed anything from him. Could he?

The note was short, concise. It asked for a day and time. It said that Hrolfdir would bring guards but that they would check their weapons at the city gate. They awaited his response.

There was a trap somewhere in this, if only he could figure out where. It wasn't often he was stumped by the machinations of others and he didn't care for the feeling.

"I see rags," Drascua hissed from her pile of bones. The scatter of bones, the droplets of blood, the curve of the entrails – blood magic was messy, but it was effective, and no one was better at scrying than the hagraven. "I see rags and silver." Her voice was a teasing sing-song, as if she saw more than she would admit to.

"I don't know what that means," he pressed her. "I need more than that."

A clatter from her claws as she shifted the bones. She let out a murmur as she changed position, her long arms and legs folded around her torso. She breathed in that heaving way all hagravens seemed to, and traced the line of the goat entrails through the layer of sand they'd spread on the floor for her. Above her was blackness in the underground city; Madanach could never get used to the feeling of being so far below the mountains. He couldn't bear being so far from his gods; no wonder the damned Dwarves were said to be atheists, no wonder Drascua couldn't see anything properly. You couldn't get any perspective down here with miles of rock and dirt above.

He missed the sky.

"I see a harvest in blood, and the head of a Jarl on a spike. I hear Shouting."

The bones clicked together, then scattered. She tilted her head to one side, let out a cawing laugh.

"I see fire."

Madanach frowned. Usually the hagraven's predictions were clearer, less esoteric. He could usually count on something that he could decipher. This was different: she spoke in riddles and enigmas, and he had no idea what most of it might mean. Should he allow this envoy? Should he decline? Should he march on the whole of Skyrim and conquer it all, just to be safe?

The thought made him wince; he rubbed his temples with his fingers and wondered if this headache would ever go away. Had the Jarl ever felt this way, or had it been easier for him to rule?

"My love?" His wife stood in the stone doorway, sleepy-eyed and tousle-haired. "Are you coming to bed?" Her belly stood before her like the bow of a ship, proud and strong.

"Soon. Soon."

…

The Warrens was perhaps the grimed place Ogmund had ever seen. It wasn't just that they were so dark – there was the sound of coughing around him, the desiccation of life. There was the scent of roasting rat on a spit, and the piles of dung in the corners where those too sick or old to make it to the privy went. He felt the filth and the stench seeping into his skin from the moment he stepped in.

A small child – boy or girl, it was impossible to tell in this light and under the babe's filth – sat at the door. Rags hung from its shoulders, and the eyes were dead in its skull. The only way he knew the child was alive was from the faint motion of their chest moving up and down. Otherwise, the illusion of a corpse was complete, with even a fly walking across one cheek.

How could these people like this way? How could so-called liberators subject anyone to this?

He would have no difficulty finding someone like-minded here, he had no doubt, but would they be strong enough to fight?

Ogmund opened the bag he'd brought with him and pulled out a load of bread, still warm from the hearth. He ripped off a large chunk and set it on the child's lap. There was a long moment where the boy – he was fairly certain – flicked his eyes up and met Ogmund's. And then the hands descended, all skin and bone, and began tearing the bread to pieces and ferrying it up to a mouth, overlarge in the poor boy's skeletal face.

It was barely a minute before faces began peeking around doors on either side of him, and there was a murmur down the hall. As far as Ogmund could see, Nord faces began peeking out at him and slowly, so very slowly, people began making their way down the hall to see the man who was bringing free food.

Some of the stronger ones smiled to see him; others just watched him silently, with wide eyes. Ogmund handed food to everyone who put their hand out, but he could see from looking at that them that it wasn't enough. They needed more than loaves of bread and green apples, and it wasn't just wedges of cheese or hearty venison stew they lacked: they needed their lives back. Their dignity.

It was too early to bring up Ulfric or his cause; they were skittish, like cats that had been kicked too often. They were shy and he didn't dare spook them. Instead he sat near a cookfire that burned in the center of the hall, crosslegged on the ground, and told himself not to think about what kind of filth he might be sitting in. He tuned his lute to the sound of munching around him, and began picking out a tune that he hoped would lift their spirits.

There would be time for talk of Jarls and war and uprisings later, another day. Today he would simply try to bring a little light and dignity to the Warrens.

"Our hero, our hero has a warrior's heart.

I tell you, I tell you, the Dragonborn comes…"

…

He couldn't believe he was doing this again again. He'd meant to quit playing this game after he brought the first false merchant and the bard to Markarth; he'd meant to quit again after the next pair of false merchants, who brought silver and fabrics. Then another three, bearing vegetables and wheat and fine cheeses. He'd lost count now of how many "merchants" he'd brought before Madanach and vouched for. He'd tried to get his wife to take the babies at least, to ride north with him to Solitude and stay there, but she'd resisted. She didn't want to leave her mother, and the old woman was going to stay. Said she had some duty or whatever to heal the people of Markarth.

Alasdair kept meaning to stop. He thought Madanach had to be getting suspicious, and if not him, one of his men. The city already felt fuller, nearly overpopulated, and when he walked from the market to his home, it seemed all he saw were the faces of the enemy, the faces he had personally escorted through the gates. Granted, he hadn't escorted _all_ of them himself – there had to be several other merchants employed by Hrolfdir in a similar fashion – but he knew them from the camps.

And worse, he thought as he plodded along on the road north, he had no idea why he couldn't quit. He didn't owe Hrolfdir anything. His life hadn't been better under Nord rule – if anything, anxiety attacks and covert missions aside, it was better now. If he wasn't constantly afraid that he was going to be murdered or his family punished for his actions, he would actually be pretty happy.

He'd been having a particularly happy day when the girl he'd first introduced to Madanach met him near the stables. She looked terrible, pale and tired. Perhaps she'd been sick. She handed him a slip of paper and mentioned that if he happened to find any bear skins in Solitude, she'd be grateful for one.

The paper was in his tunic before he could stop to think better of it. He knew from her wording that it was to go to Ulfric, but she was just so pitiful-looking that he found he wanted to do whatever he could to help.

And now here he was again, helping the enemy.

It just went to show, he thought sourly, that it didn't pay to give in when people asked favors. It would be good to learn some boundaries.

The message burned hotly against his skin, although that could have been his imagination. He considered for just a moment pulling it from his tunic, ripping it into miniscule pieces, and tossing the whole damn thing in the river. The pieces would separate and the ink would bleed and become incomprehensible anyway, and his life would be forfeit when he got to Solitude, so what was he thinking?

Igmund waited in Solitude. Tired of waiting, the Jarl's son had taken a small contingent of men from Falkreath and headed north to await Alasdair's next visit. When he got there, Igmund would immediately expect to see the letter and would expect him to turn around within a few days and escort more "merchants" into the city.

Hrolfdir was one thing – a kindly older man, Alasdair felt sorry for him, living in exile. But Igmund was something else. He was flinty-eyed and it was obvious he was always seeking an advantage. Alasdair got the distinct impression that the son was incapable of considering anyone before himself.

He had the impression that Igmund would get him killed, one way or another.

And so he chose to take his death on the road, away from his family. Hopefully it would look like bandits, and his wife would be safe. She and the children could go to live with her mother, or her sister Alys at the mine outside the city. Anywhere would likely be safer than with him, anyway.

He plodded on, and felt the message burn.


	4. The Amulet

The Markarth Incident: The Amulet

By: Veronica Lale

Disclaimer: Thanks Bethesda, for creating an immersive world. On a personal note, I just stepped outside and saw the Northern Lights and holy crap, you guys, it was awesome and made me want to write.

Moth didn't much care for the so-called King of the Reach.

He'd been pretty excited – or as excited as he ever got, really – when the Legionnaires departed and Hrolfdir deposed. The native Nords weren't known for treating the other races well, and Markarth was no exception. Moth hadn't been to Windhelm, but he'd heard of the Gray Quarter, so he knew things could get worse, but in his experience, the Nords of Markarth were particularly unwelcoming.

Since he and Ghorza had arrived in the city of stone ten years ago, he'd worked his way up to the castle blacksmith, and that position hadn't changed since Madanach took over. It was funny, though, that while Ghorza was clearly the superior blacksmith, it was Moth who was offered the more coveted position.

It was just another example of the way the Nords would discriminate unfairly.

He'd supported Madanach and the rebels, he really had. He'd supplied them with weapons and so had retained his place in the castle after the uprising. He'd thought that the Reachmen, with all their complaints about the Nords and their history of being abused, would better understand the plight of an Orc in Skyrim.

By Malacath, was he a fool.

Ghorza had known it, hadn't she? She'd berated him for forfeiting good steel, had harangued him for believing that things could ever be different for them. The only place they truly belonged was in the Bagol stronghold, and they didn't even really belong _there_.

After all, weren't their kind known as the Pariah Folk?

A fool, he was. A damn fool.

And now here he was again, making a fool of himself for a second time, and he knew his sister would disagree with him again. "How could you make the same mistake twice? What were you thinking? Things can only get worse for us!" He could just hear her voice in his head.

But no one knew the part he had played in the rebellion except the rebels, and he doubted any of them would make it through the siege of the city. If they did, they would likely be executed. And they couldn't continue living in the Warrens, where they'd been sent when Madanach took over. Reachmen lived in their room in the keep now, and Ghorza was reduced to mining with the bans on buying new weaponry in place.

He hammered the sword he'd been dispatched to make, folding the hot steel over top of itself again, and listening to it pop and hiss. In his head, he heard one of the songs the bard had sung in the Warrens the night before, his voice echoing in the cavernous main room, his lute hitting every note so sweetly. It wasn't becoming for an orc to love music so much and normally, Moth couldn't care less about it, but something about the bard's ringing voice and his own frustration had stuck.

The bard came every night, and dispensed food and sang. Each night, before he left, he would sit and talk with whomever wished to speak with him. Moth had lost count of the number of nights this had happened – sixteen? Seventeen? More? He had no clue now.

And last night the bard had finally asked Moth for his help.

It wasn't steel the Nord wanted, but Moth's arm. Could he fight?

_Would_ he fight?

Even Moth had been amazed by how quickly the decision was made for him. Of course he would fight. Things were worse now than they had been before, and if they continued this way, the rats would be eating _him_. And why not, when the lice already did? At the very least, if they could return to the way things had been under Hrolfdir, he could count that as an improvement.

In the glow of his forge deep in Understone Keep, hammered to the beat of a song he didn't entirely remember. He knew the bard would be counting on him, and it was nice to finally have a purpose again, one that didn't rely entirely on Madanach and his hateful people.

No one was going to push him and Ghorza down anymore, that was for certain.

…

Around him, the trees were a distracting riot of green. Alasdair was in a hurry. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had to get home, had to collect his wife and daughters, had to get them out of the city, out of the Reach, out of the reach of Madanach.

He didn't know why, but somehow he knew – he knew! – his position had been compromised.

The wagon was abandoned miles back as being too slow, just left by the side of the road, at a weird angle and half in a ditch. He'd left his wares in it, too desperate to get home to consider what to do with them. Mayhap they'd be there when he returned north, but most likely not. Instead, he rode his horse as fast as he dared through the marshes of south-western Hjaalmarch, down the road that would take him to the border.

He never rode this fast – he was by nature a cautious man, but the same instinct that told him he had been found out told him to hurry, that he was too slow, that he'd never make it in time.

It was due north of Rorikstead that it happened: an arrow, fletched with red pheasant feathers.

He was riding along, speeding as fast as he could, and then an arrow flew past him and stuck in the ground. Alasdair was going too quickly to process it before another one whipped by, barely missing his face and sinking into the rear end of his horse.

The animal screamed, stopping in its tracks.

Before the merchant was a barricade, he saw now, and a troop of bandits. Their leader, a large woman made larger by her thick steel armor, wore a crooked grin and no hair but a strip going down the center of her skull.

Alasdair stared at the bandits and the bandits stared back. There must have been eight of them, possibly more. They'd effectively shut down the road since his trip north, and it was clear they had no intention of letting him pass without payment.

"You picked a bad time to get lost, friend," the leader of the bandits sneered. The biggest guy, the one to her left (with only four teeth that Alasdair could see), chuckled. It was not a reassuring chuckle.

"I have no money," he called out to them. This was the truth, but he didn't expect them to believe him. Bandits weren't exactly trusting folk by nature.

"You'll be easier to rob when you're dead anyway," the woman spoke again.

Alasdair heard more than felt the arrow strike him. There was the hiss of it flying through the air, then the thump as it sank into his throat. He would have sworn he heard the blood leaking out the hole if he could speak. Then there was the crash as he fell from his horse into the dirt.

Only then did the pain set in, but by then there was something new and curious to hear: "Nice shot, Alvyn. Ten points!"

What a funny thing for her to say, was his last thought.

…

Ogmund hadn't yet received a message from outside the city. He had finally accrued a pretty good selection of fighters within the city and, better yet, he began to recognize more and more of the new "merchants" coming in as soldiers of Ulfric's. He knew the time was coming soon.

But he didn't know just when yet.

He spent his days now walking the market, picking up food to take to the Warrens at night. He'd fill his bag with bread and chickens and onions for stew. He'd long since given up buying things already cooked, aside from the bread – his coin stretched farther if he purchased ingredients and the folk in the Warrens made their own nourishing meals. Each night when he went down there, after playing for some time at the Silver-Blood Inn, he was pleased to see his countrymen growing fat and strong.

They would be ready when the time came, he thought.

He hadn't yet talked with most of the Warrens' inhabitants in detail about the coming revolt, but there was an understanding in place there. He knew they would help when the time came. Arming them would be the hardest task, but there were weapons enough in the city now, and he had faith that they would make their way into the right hands.

But now he stood in the Shrine of Talos. Behind him, even through the stone walls, he could hear the river rushing as he tried to pray. It sounded as if it were laughing.

He didn't know why the shrine hadn't been closed – maybe it was that Madanach knew what it was like to have your religion denigrated by those in power and so had left it as a gesture of peace, although the thought made Ogmund snort out loud. More likely, it had been neglected in the transition and no one had bothered to close it up.

Ogmund's head bent, he tried to clear his mind to better talk to Talos, in hopes he might receive His blessing. Everything was uncertain right now and perhaps Talos could reassure him, even if he couldn't get an answer.

It didn't help that Agata was still avoiding him. Whenever he saw her, she shifted away and tried not to meet his eyes. It had been three – or was it four? He was losing count – months since they'd entered the city, and still, she sat by the fire all day and night. All that sitting couldn't be good for her; he was sure she was out of fighting shape and, although he would never say it to her, it appeared she'd put on a little weight.

When this ordeal was over, would she return to herself?

He tilted his head up, and looked at Talos's face above him. The man turned god had a stone face, impassive and ineffable; he couldn't read anything on it, certainly not his fate.

Disgusted with himself, Ogmund stood and rubbed his knees; he wasn't a young man anymore, and kneeling for so long on hard stones had perhaps been a poor choice. He didn't know when or if Agata would return to him; he didn't know when or if Ulfric would attack the city. He'd gotten no answers and only served to annoy himself with his questions.

Talos had bigger things to handle, clearly, and so did Ogmund. The sun was almost down, and so it was time to head to the Silver-Blood Inn and get back to work.

…

It was the amulet that caught her eye. Agata hadn't seen an amulet of Talos since that night by the White River. In the green glow of the lights above, it had sparkled at Ulfric's throat and she'd thought for a moment how nice it would be to have something representative of Talos as she went into battle. Something to remind her of what they were fighting for, of what it was they stood up for.

The amulet lay in a jumble of jewelry, among silver rings and gold necklaces, the leather thong that threaded through it tangled around a copper circlet. She lifted her head and furtively looked up and down the marketplace. No one around seemed to notice her, and no one she knew.

She had no idea how dangerous it might be to buy an amulet of Talos here, let alone wear one, but being out of doors, out in the bright sun, made her feel reckless. She'd forgotten how good the sun felt on her hair, how much her legs loved to walk. She had actually eaten this morning, half a roast chicken with leeks and a bowl of Birgit's potato soup. She'd been on her way to the local healer's for advice when the dull copper of the amulet caught her eye.

Again, she looked up the street, then down the street. No one was paying her the slightest mind (and why would they? She was hardly remarkable, with a hood over her crooked hair and in a dull dress, she didn't stand out at all). The owner of the stall seemed to have stepped away for a moment.

In a flash, the amulet was in her pocket.

She looked around again; again, no one seemed to have seen her. She might as well be invisible.

In another quick motion, she'd set a septim on the counter. Fast as a rabbit, she had turned on her heel and was walking as casually down the street as she knew how. Let it never be said that Agata was a thief – she'd paid for what she took, she just didn't want anyone to know who she was or _what_ she took.

After a couple blocks, she turned into an alley and pulled the amulet from her pocket.

It was warm from her pocket, from the heat of the sun beating down on her. She stared at it – the copper was somewhat green in places and she thought it might turn her skin colors. It was at that moment that the thing began to _glow_.

In her hand, in the shade, with no direct sun, the amulet began to glow a dim gold, and she felt her hand grow hot where her skin touched the metal of the amulet.

Agata stared.

Then it dimmed, and it cooled, and it was as it was before. She wondered briefly if she was going crazy, but then dismissed that. It was a sign, a message.

She tied the leather around her neck and tucked the amulet against her throat, inside the neck of her dress. There it sat, warming on her skin, a reminder of her purpose here in Markarth. Feeling it there, as heavy as it was, she felt strength begin to flow through her limbs again.

She felt strong again. She felt _alive _again.

She had come out on the other side, and she was ready to fight.

…

The girl on the bench reminded Bothela of her daughter Maris. Both girls were of an age, tall, and freckled with reddish hair. This one was tougher-looking, with half her head recently shaved (though now a fuzz had grown in), and long legs. The healer wondered idly how Maris was faring – Alasdair had never been gone this long, and the girl was starting to worry – then forced herself to focus.

From the size of her belly, Bothela estimated that the baby had about four months to go – given that it was nearly Harvest's End, that meant the girl could expect to be a mother sometime around the new year. The older woman could feel the baby's heart beating well, and when she pushed the girl's tight belly, could sometimes feel a foot or hand push back.

"It appears healthy enough," she finally said. The girl smiled, one of those radiant smiles that Alys was so famous for, a Reachwoman's greatest weapon. It was like the clouds parting on a rainy day. It made Bothela's stomach flip with concern at the thought of her younger daughter living outside the walls of the city, all unprotected.

"I'm so glad to hear it. And new year, you said?"

Bothela nodded, suddenly tired. "It's hard to tell, with a stomach as firm as yours, but I'd guess new year or shortly after. Babies come when they want, though, so this is only a guess." She tried to smile back but was only able to create a grimace on her worried face.

The girl didn't seem to notice; she was still smiling and looked dazed.

"I'm going to be a mother," she said finally, as if in awe.

…

Hrolfdir was tired. The trip from Falkreath to the camp outside Markarth had been exhausting, but it was more than that: what he felt was fatigue deep in his bones, the type of enervation that wearies the soul even more than the body.

He was getting old; more than that, he knew he had little time left.

The healer he'd seen had made it clear – the Jarl had only a few months left. Maybe a year, at most, and most of it in great pain, and in bed.

Sitting in his tent and staring at the wrong side of Markarth's walls, he tried to work up some righteous anger at the loss of his home, but he was just too exhausted to consider it. His temporary steward had brought up hot water for a bath, but all Hrolfdir could do was look at it and sigh. A bath might have been nice, but if he sat down, he might never get up again; standing was an unreliable activity. The tumor pressing on his brain made his coordination inconsistent, to say the least.

In time, the healer had said, his speech would go, and then his ability to think.

Hrolfdir had no intention of spending his last days prostrate in a bed in Falkreath while his people lived under a false ruler. He was a Jarl, and his job was ruling his hold, and he had every intention of doing that. And, too, he was a Nord; he would live his last days defending his hold and die in battle, and then join the heroes of Sovngarde in the Hall of Valor.

There simply was no other option.

Tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, he would march into Markarth with a guard. They would leave their weapons outside the city, to be sure – he was a man of his word – but he would go in a Jarl, even if he came out a lifeless sack of meat.

He would meet with Madanach.

And he would either negotiate peace, or he would die.

It was no less than what the people of the Reach deserved.

…

Agata was sitting up in the bed when he got back, reading a book. Her eyes were bright for the first time in weeks, unclouded and lovely. Something seemed different about her – something that had been missing had perhaps been returned. It made his news pale in her light, big as it was: he'd found out at the Inn tonight that tomorrow would be The Day. Hrolfdir was coming to treat with Madanach. This time tomorrow, it would all be over.

When Ogmund walked into the room, she smiled and put the book down. There was a piece of straw from the mattress stuck in her hair; it was endearing and made him want to kiss her.

He sat beside her.

"Thank you for being so patient with me," she finally said. "I know it has been difficult."

"What happened?"

She didn't say anything, just stared at her hands.

And then she met his eyes and said, "There's going to be a baby."

Ogmund's heart was going to break. He had never felt a pain so wonderful.

…

Waiting in Falkreath, Ulfric had never been more bored. Since Igmund had headed north to Solitude, he had been stuck there with Hrolfdir. The Jarl had clearly been angry with his son for taking off without leave, but it was obvious to Ulfric that Igmund did whatever he wanted, no matter what his father thought.

So they had waited in Falkreath for endless weeks. No messages, nothing. Nothing but a dull little town in the middle of pine forest, waiting.

Finally, Hrolfdir must have had enough, because he gave the orders to move out and the troops left the next day. Now they camped outside the city of Markarth, and things were changing.

For one, Ulfric could feel the excitement on the part of the soldiers. Finally, the reason they had marched so far, and left their families, and come to this inhospitable wasteland was upon them. Soon they would enter the city, lay waste to it, and then head home to their families and their sweethearts. Soon they would be drinking in meadhalls and telling the story of how marched with Ulfric Stormcloak and won the city of Markarth back from the vile Reachmen.

Second, there was a difference in Hrolfdir. Maybe it was his son's betrayal that weighed on him, but he was changed. He seemed more energetic, less resigned. The old man was more willing to discuss strategy, although he was still insisting on going into the city and attempting to talk some sense into Madanach before the troops descended.

They would go into the city the next day; they would meet with Madanach, and – if necessary – Ulfric would Shout until they won. Galmar would stay outside the city with the bulk of the militia, ready to strike. Finally, they'd gotten a message inside and even had several soldiers ready to dispatch with members of the city guard and open the gates when the clock struck three if Ulfric and Hrolfdir hadn't yet emerged from Understone Keep.

It was all planned, it was all set.

Inside his skin, Ulfric could feel everything vibrating. He was excited to walk through the gates. He thrilled to think of seeing Madanach face-to-face – after all this time and all that he'd been through, the King of the Reach had taken on an almost mythical presence in his mind.

He eager to introduce the rebels to Talos in his own way, with fists and blades.

Ulfric had no doubt in his mind that Hrolfdir's plan was folly, but he understood why the old man was insisting on it. The right thing to do was to give Madanach a chance to surrender, a chance to save his own skin and to prevent further bloodshed.

Ulfric also had no doubt that Madanach would reject this offer outright and would kill the rightful Jarl; that was so certain in his mind as to be pre-ordained.

It was up to him to make sure that Hrolfdir did not die in vain.

…

Moth stood near the stairs. Jarl Hrolfdir and his party would be here soon, and Moth wanted to make sure he was close enough to protect the Jarl. His sister, to his surprise, had taken to the idea of helping to reinstate the old Jarl and stood opposite him on the far side of the staircase, wearing an axe and a small smile.

He wished he felt as cool as she looked, but then again, he was an Orc: if he didn't feel it, he'd best pretend or people would think he was soft.

And so, as the great doors to the hall were flung open, he turned to the shaft of light that fell far short of the stairs to the Mournful Throne and became ready for the end.


	5. The Mournful Throne

The Markarth Incident: The Mournful Throne

By: Veronica Lale

Disclaimer: Thanks Bethesda, for creating an immersive world.

Hrolfdir really thought he was prepared for the sight of Madanach on his throne – he'd considered it the whole way from Falkreath, and the night before their meeting, he'd sat staring at the walls of Markarth, considering what would happen the day before. He'd known, objectively, that Madanach would be sitting there.

He'd known it objectively, but the heart isn't objective.

That throne, the seat of his father and his father's father and on and on, was being defiled. For a moment, Hrolfdir felt a flash of the type of anger he commonly saw on Igmund's face during war councils, and something clicked for him. _This_ was why his son fought so hard, _this_ was why he had such rage. _This_ was why they were fighting.

But no, that was wrong: they were fighting for the people of the Reach. For as they'd walked through the city to Understone Keep, Hrolfdir had seen hundreds of skinny Nords – his own people – staring as they passed near the entrance to the Warrens. They were too thin, his people, and dirty, and their eyes were flinty or dead. Towards the back, he saw the face of Betrid Silver-Blood, her golden hair lank and uneven; next to her was her brother-in-law, his lips a hard line and a bruise over one eye. Looking at them, he couldn't bear to think of them suffering for the last two years, awaiting his return.

Igmund might be fighting for their birthright, but Hrolfdir had to fight for the _right_ that their birth bestowed – that was the difference that wisdom brought, he supposed.

And so, when he saw Madanach on the Mournful Throne, the Jarl swallowed the festering rage that blistered inside his throat like bile, and greeted the man as one would an equal.

As for him, Madanach only nodded from his place on the throne and began the negotiations with a cold, "You wanted to speak?"

Was this what petitioning was? If he'd known how truly intimidating it was, perhaps when he was a younger man, Hrolfdir would have been kinder to some of the common people who came before him. Ignoring the insult, he nodded.

"Yes, Madanach. As you know, we have an army waiting outside the city walls to take back Markarth and then, after, the Reach."

"We have seen your troops. Frankly, I am not impressed."

Well, that stung a little. Madanach had grown up here, though – how could he have thought anything else. The man knew the city's defenses, especially as he'd been strengthening them for the last two years.

He hadn't counted on Ulfric, though.

"Have you met Ulfric Stormcloak?" He gestured to the young man to his right, and Ulfric nodded, a brief curt incline of his head; it was clear the tall warrior thought little of Madanach. Hrolfdir thought he noticed a tightening at Madanach's lips.

"I have not had the chance. My position has not yet been recognized by the Empire."

"Perhaps you know him by reputation. Ulfric spent his childhood studying the Way of the Voice with the Greybeards."

The Jarl didn't notice how much murmuring there had been in the hall until it ceased. His honor guard, standing behind him, had been silent all along, but on either side, he heard a sudden quiet descend over the hall. Townspeople glanced uncertainly at Ulfric, and he noticed a few of them begin to move towards the exits.

Madanach did not speak. Mayhap he felt there was nothing for him to say.

Desperate inside, Hrolfdir went on: "If you and your rebels leave the city peacefully, I will give you a plot of land in the Reach to govern as you see fit. I will be your liege lord, but you will command your people and be independent, and free to practice your own culture."

Madanach let out a huge laugh, but Hrolfdir thought he heard an edge of panic in it.

"And if I refuse your offer? Do you forget, sir, that we already hold the Reach and have for two years? Why should I give up what I already control?" He smirked as he asked, "Why should I allow myself to be ruled by a man who did not keep his own hold?"

It was the old Jarl's turn to smile. It was a kindly smile, the type associated with grandfathers who would give you a sweet for coming by to visit.

"I thought it rather plain why. If you don't agree to my terms, I shall have Ulfric Shout until you and every one of your rebels are de-"

And before he could finish, he collapsed, a small throwing axe protruding from beneath his jaw.

…

Madanach was stunned. In fact, everyone in the hall seemed equally stunned. Everyone looked around, but no one seemed to know where exactly the axe had come from. Hundreds of people stood completely still, completely silent. Although it was probably less than a minute, it stretched on for an eternity.

Then everything happened at once.

"I want him alive," Ulfric bellowed, pointing at Madanach. Then he bellowed something incoherent – perhaps it was another language? – and it seemed he was moving faster than Madanach had ever seen anyone move before, his huge sword bringing down men to either side of him in a blur.

His guards and the townspeople should have been able to hold back the small number of guards that had accompanied the Jarl, but everywhere he looked, there was fighting. He ducked under an arrow that would have struck him at the last moment, and then slid down the steps to the throne, bumping his shins as he went.

As he took in the scene around him, it occurred to him what had happened in a flash: the merchants. Everywhere, he saw tall Nords with weapons. They were dressed as merchants or farmers, but as he looked more closely now, he could see the line of leather armor under their clothes.

How had he missed this? How could he have been such a naïve fool?

He felt the energy massing inside his arm and, flicking his wrist, released a fireball into the back of a big Nord dressed in worn, soiled velvet. This man had been sent to the Warrens, but now he stood inside the keep, armed and fighting – or, well, at this point he was armed and flailing, flames spreading from his tunic to his hair. What in the world had happened here? _How_ had it happened?

He heard another incoherent Shout, and overhead, storm clouds began massing, despite the fact that they were not only indoors but under a damned mountain.

Outside. He had to get outside, had to get into the sun. It he could get outside and see the sky, he would know what to do.

A man couldn't think under all this rock.

But the door was so impossibly far, and all around him was the sound of steel hitting iron, the sound of iron slicing into flesh, the grunts of the wounded and the heavy slaps of the dead falling onto the stone floor. Somewhere, distantly, he could hear the sound of blood dripping. Through the sounds of battle, he couldn't even hear the waterfall anymore, nor the hiss of the Dwemer devices chugging along.

He felt something slice into his shoulder and he turned with a grunt. The keep blacksmith, the foul orc with the smashed face, stood over him, tusks gleaming in the dim light, blood splashed across the apron he still wore.

Madanach held his hands in front of him and felt the energy begin whipping between them; the black ball laced with thunderbolts grew and he took aim as he bounced back, aiming for the orc's face, and he would have hit Moth square in the jaw had a shield not descended upon his head at that very moment, rendering him unconscious.

"Thank you, sister," Moth said over Madanach's inert form. Ghorza grinned.

"Of course, brother."

…

It had been a long time since Ogmund had been in a battle as opposed to a fight. He supposed the difference was mainly political, but also involved the number of combatants; any time more than twenty-five people were fighting, it ceased being a brawl and became a battle.

This was the biggest battle he'd ever seen.

He was having a hard time keeping an eye on Agata across the hall, but he was pleasantly surprised by what he did see. He'd helped her find a way to armor herself beneath her cloak, despite her growing belly, and she was moving with more skill and dexterity than he'd seen from her in weeks. He'd helped her shave the side of her head again, and she was fearsome indeed with the red scar on the side of her head.

Ogmund ducked under a whirling blade and brought his sword up into the body of the fancy-pants fighter next to him. The blade slid in easily, then met resistance from the man's organs. Ogmund shoved his shoulder into the man's belly, and used the leverage to push the sword in farther. After a moment, the man stopped moving and Ogmund pulled his sword free, allowing the man to fall to the stone floor.

The man he'd just killed was young, with a confused look on his face. His blood was forming a slippery puddle on the stone floor, and all Ogmund could think was that he'd best be careful or he might slip in it and the stones here were hard – crashing to the ground would be bad, indeed.

Somehow it was raining as he turned and met the next threat, a small dark-haired woman with flames dancing across her fingers, despite the rain.

…

As suddenly as it started, it seemed to end. Agata couldn't remember how many men she'd taken down; she'd never been in battle before, and it seemed now that she had been in battle for as long as she could remember.

She had never been more tired.

Around her, a few committed souls were still stabbing each other. Mostly, though, there were bodies on the floor and some people still standing.

She was still standing, but not for long.

Looking around, she found a bench along one wall. With a heavy sigh, she began picking her way through the bodies towards it. She tried not to look at the faces of the dead – there was too much surprise there, and so much blood.

How had she never stopped to consider how much blood there would be?

She breathed slowly, trying to ignore the smell of blood and urine around her, and sat carefully on the stone bench. Across the hall, talking with an orc woman, she saw Ulfric. His fur cloak and tall stature were unmistakable. Near him, she could see another orc holding up Madanach's limp body. It appears the King of the Reach's hands were tied – so he was still alive then.

Where had that axe come from?

For a moment, she'd considered that maybe this would all end the best possible way – that no one would have to die. She leaned back against the wall and rubbed her stomach. It was round and firm and heavy, and now that she had stopped moving, she wondered at her ability to fight. How had she gotten up and moved so quickly, so surely?

That was when she felt it: one small kick, against her hand. Like a fish, knocking against the side of a fountain.

She had to tell Ogmund. She looked around the hall, suddenly elated, the battle-weariness and blood splashed on her cheek forgotten. There seemed to be fewer and fewer of Ulfric's men in the hall the longer she stood there, but perhaps it was just the wounded going to be tended. Ulfric himself was helping the orcs to drag Madanach towards the entrance of the keep; she saw several soldiers sprint past him and out the door.

Some air would do her good, she thought, so perhaps she had best follow.

…

When Bothela heard the screaming from the keep, she knew.

She ran to the window and peeked out. Running from the keep, men and women, good Reachlanders all, fleeing soldiers with their weapons raised. Peeking around the curtain, Bothela saw a young woman attacked in the back with a broadsword, cleaved almost in half. The woman fell to the ground, twitching and pale.

With a gasp, Bothela ducked below the window and began to crawl towards the bed. Beneath her bed was the secret trapdoor. Beneath the bed was safety.

She was halfway there when she thought of the girl. Her assistant had wanted to go to the keep today to see the Jarl and the King together. So much of the town had planned to go, but Bothela had wanted to replenish her store of potions and had chosen instead to stay home and mix cures.

"Why should I go to see two horses asses when I have work to do," she'd asked Alys when her daughter stopped by earlier.

Alys. And Maris. Of course.

Her heart stopped.

She'd forgotten her daughters were going to go as well. Both supporters of the King of the Reach, they'd left their mother's house laughing at the thought of the Jarl begging for his seat back.

Her daughters were in the keep.

She paused, listening to the sounds outside. There was steel on steel and the whistle of arrows. She heard spells being cast, and the crackle of fire. She crawled back to the window and lifted her head to peer back out.

The world was coming down around her. There was a large Nord in mail sawing off the head of a Reachman with what looked like a dining knife. Across the square she saw a Reachwoman casting spells that sent an icicle into a Nord solider's eye, dropping him in his tracks. So intently was she watching the action outside her door that she didn't hear that door open and close.

Then there was Alys standing in front of her.

At first, her daughter looked the same, if scared and with a splash of blood across her face like warpaint. It was only when the girl turned that her mother could see the arrows sticking out of her back.

Eight. One for each Divine.

Strapped to her chest was Odvin, bawling incoherently. Alys was trying to unstrap him but her fingers were shaking so hard she couldn't work the fastenings of her carrier, and the leather strips kept catching on the arrows sticking out of her back.

"What happened?" Bothela was too stunned to move. She blinked, hoping that she'd somehow hallucinated this terrible vision, but it was still there when she opened her eyes.

"I did it, mother," her daughter said, laughing shakily, but Bothela didn't know what she meant.

She helped her daughter unstrap the baby. Alys lay down on her side on the hearth rug, curled towards the fire.

"What did you do, my dear?" The healer looked at the arrows, but she knew even before she got closer that there was nothing to be done. Her daughter should have been dead already.

"I did it. I was the only one with the courage," Alys said.

"The courage for what?"

Bothela waited, bouncing the baby on her knee until he ceased crying, but there would never be an answer.

…

It was several hours before Ogmund headed back to Arnleif's house. The streets were a mess of the dead and dying, and every once in a while, the stream running through Markarth briefly turned red. He was trying not to think too hard about what that meant.

The first indication that something was wrong was the door: it hung off the hinges.

Inside, the living room was a mess. Books were strewn about with pages torn out, the dining table was overturned, and blood spattered the walls. When he stepped around the table, he saw it: three bodies.

Little bodies.

Arnleif's daughters.

A short distance away, he found Arnleif. Well, _half_ of Arnleif. The other half of Arnleif seemed to have been cut into even smaller pieces and left in bits around the floor. Whoever had been here was a jackal.

He pushed gently on the door to the main bedroom, and found "whoever:" four of Ulfric's soldiers from Windhelm, circled around the bed. Birgit was lashed to the bed, naked, and he couldn't find the words for what they were doing to her.

His brothers-in-arms. The men he had fought alongside. They were the ones visiting this torment upon her.

"What are you doing?" He cried out.

Five sets of eyes turned to look at him.

"They were collaborators, weren't they? Just teaching this bitch a lesson," one of the men replied.

"And the little girls? What did they do?"

None of the men answered. Instead, there was a faint groan from Birgit. This was all it took for Ogmund to lose it. Suddenly, he was holding the closest man against the wall, a dagger to the man's throat.

"Do you think it's funny to murder children? That it's okay to torture those who can't fight back?

There was no good answer to this, and the man with the dagger to his throat seemed to know it.

"You'll be punished for this," Ogmund said as he released the man from the wall. "Ulfric will see to that."

He bent to untie Birgit, heaved her up in his arms, and strode out of the house to find his commander. He was halfway to the keep before he remembered the baby.

Where had the baby been?

…

There was nothing to prepare Agata for the scene in the house. When she saw the door, she'd known what she would find inside. Knowing it and seeing it, though, were entirely different things.

The bloodshed was indescribable. When she found the girls, she collapsed in a heap, crying. It was from this position that she found the baby, lying under one of his sisters. He was fine and whole – without the swaddling around him, whatever had cut him would have caused him injury, but he'd been tightly wrapped and whatever blade had done most of this work, it had missed him. He was scared but alert and when he saw her, he began to coo.

She lifted him into her arms, rocking him against her chest, and began to feel tears on her cheeks. She supposed she was crying.

This was because of her. Ulfric had promised her that her family would be safe, but she knew now that this was never a promise that could be kept – riots were not unusual during a siege, and rape and torture and murder were to be expected.

Looking around her at the carnage, she tried to tally the bodies that would still be alive had she not agreed to this foolish plan. There was Arnleif and his three children, and probably Birgit, too. There was the old Jarl, dead somewhere on the floor of the keep. There were the men that she had killed directly, and all those that had died because she and Ogmund had come to this city and lied about who they were, and tried to recruit others.

The weight of these dead began to weigh her down.

She couldn't carry it all.

Slowly, gently, she lay the baby back down next to his dead sisters. He was not happy with this, and kicked his legs, his face turning redder with each cry.

Surely someone would come by and find him; surely he wouldn't be alone. And if he died here, what did it matter when his entire family was dead?

All she knew was that she couldn't go back, and she couldn't stay here.

Fingers numb, she felt at her neck for the amulet she'd bought the other day, the one she'd thought would protect her. She fumbled and groped, and then suddenly it was free from her neck and fell to the floor next to Bjorn, glinting dully in the light from the setting sun that peeked through the window.

And then she turned, and she left.

…

Ulfric was furious. He expected more from his soldiers; he expected more from himself. Bad enough that he'd watched, mouth agape, along with everyone else as Hrolfdir bled out slowly next to him, a beatific smile on his face. Bad enough that the fight in the keep had taken so long as it had, and that some orc had gotten to Madanach before he had. Bad enough that Igmund had missed the whole thing in his impatience and was instead in Solitude.

Was this because of the boy that night, the one at the White River? He'd stopped that boy from raping but perhaps had been too lenient. Perhaps he should have made an example of him.

He wouldn't make the same mistake again.

He stood before the four men Ogmund had named, dragged to him by Galmar Stonefist himself. He looked each of them in the eye and asked for their crimes.

While Ogmund said that one of the four had been flippant, even casual, about their crimes, Ulfric found the opposite: all four shook, averted their eyes, and named their deeds in wavering voices. Perhaps they thought this would win them some sort of leniency.

Perhaps they were wrong.

After they finished the accounting of their crimes, he stood before them and named their sentence: death by beheading, to be carried out the next morning in front of their brothers. He would do it himself.

Ulfric would not allow something like this to happen again.


	6. Jarl

The Markarth Incident: Jarl

By: Veronica Lale

Disclaimer: Thanks Bethesda, for creating an immersive world.

Author Note: This may be the very last chapter. I have part of an epilogue written but am unsure if it adds anything. Are there loose ends you guys want me to tie up, or is this sufficient? I am on the fence about this.

* * *

It had taken too long for the messenger to reach Solitude. Igmund had been staying at the Blue Palace, arguing ceaselessly with an Imperial emissary over the terms of his treaty with Ulfric and had kept the courier waiting for too long when the man did arrive, requesting aid before the march on Markarth. Then there was the interminable wait for the emissary and his entourage.

He didn't know if he was angrier with the messenger for taking so long to reach the capital city, or with the emissary's cavalier attitude, or with himself for being so far. Mayhap he was angriest with his father for going into the city without him, for taking this risk despite knowing the consequences.

His father's body had already been laid to rest in the Hall of the Dead by the time Igmund made it through the gates. He looked down at the body now and saw an old, tired man. He wore a cloak of fur and someone had packed his neck with bandages; in his hands, he clasped a finely-worked Dwarven sword, which he would take with him to Sovngarde. In the dim lights of the crypt, his father's wrinkles created shadow-stripes across his features, and even if his father had been animated, alive, Igmund wasn't sure he'd recognize the Jarl.

Former Jarl. Igmund supposed he was Jarl now.

He hadn't wanted it to be this way.

As the Jarl's son, he'd always known that someday he must ascend to the Mournful Throne, but he hadn't thought it would be for some time yet, and he hadn't thought his father would die like this: in an unprovoked attack, unable to defend himself.

His father should have had the chance to stand and face his assailant, to reach for a weapon, to assure his place in Sovngardge. Instead he'd been taken by surprise by someone with no honor in a senseless bid for peace with a worthless traitor.

Igmund knew he should pray to Arkay, but he was too angry; any prayers were likely to come out orders and harangues. He'd best wait until he'd calmed down.

He left the Hall of the Dead through the back door and came out into the keep, near the ruined entrance to old Nchaund-Zel. Around him in the massive hall lay wounded soldiers being tended by healers. Makeshift beds had been assembled with hay and blankets, and everywhere he turned was the faint metallic smell of blood, and all he could hear was the water rushing past.

He turned left and headed up the stairs to the audience chamber, where an unwelcome and infuriating site met his eyes: Ulfric Stormcloak.

A wave of disgust hit him as he thought for a moment that Ulfric was seated in the throne – in his throne, that his father had fought and died for, in the throne that they had only just taken back from a different pretender! And then he realized that the other Jarl's son was seated on the staircase two steps down.

Igmund took a deep breath, tried to steady himself. Tried to calm his breathing.

Ulfric had fought for them, and as detestable as he found the man, there was still one thing left to do. Much as Igmund didn't like Ulfric, he dreaded the task before him.

"Ulfric," he greeted the other man.

"Well met, kinsman," Ulfric nodded at him. The younger man looked tired; a wound had been recently stitched closed over one of his eyes, giving him a lopsided appearance. In the weeks since they'd seen each other, Igmund saw Ulfric's beard had grown fuller, darker. Suddenly, he looked more a man and less a weedy boy.

He'd be a threat in the future, if he had one. Given what Igmund had left to do, he didn't think that would be a problem.

But first: "The city is bleeding."

"Yes. Unfortunately, I had some soldiers who decided looting and raping was more their pleasure." Ulfric grew silent. "They won't be a problem in the future."

"Have all the rioters been executed?"

A nod from Ulfric. "It appears they only attacked Reachfolk. Very few of them were murdered but unfortunately, some were children. I suppose I must live knowing I brought their undoing to this city." His eyes grew dark and he stopped speaking. Igmund felt a twinge of regret at what he must do.

"There is an Imperial emissary outside the city," he said after a moment. "He needs you to sign some documents regarding the Talos worship."

Ulfric looked up at him. His face was unreadable.

"I'll go with you."

…

Ogmund balanced the tray on one arm as he opened the door to the bedroom. Birgit sat in the bed, pale as the sheet upon which she lay, the baby cuddled in her arms. He'd found the baby when he returned to the house to look again for Agata and perhaps leave her a note. Lying half on the squalling infant was an amulet of Talos.

He hadn't seen Agata since the battle.

Her body was nowhere to be found, so he knew she must have lived. But where would she have gone?

He set the tray before Birgit. The woman smiled up at him as well as she could, but she would bear the scar on her cheek from the attack for the rest of her life. She looked grateful, but weak and sad, and he wished there was something he could do for her.

"Thank you."

"It was no trouble," he told her, and took the baby so she could eat. Since the attack, Bjorn couldn't stand to be put down for even a moment, and Birgit couldn't bear to be without him. Ogmund had removed the bodies of the dead while Birgit convalesced in Bothela's home, but he'd been unable to completely wash the bloodstains from the stone floor. Bjorn was all the woman had left, where once she'd had so many people to love.

The baby smiled up at him, his one bottom tooth glinting in the light. Looking down at the boy, Ogmund knew the time had nearly come to leave Markarth, to see if he could find Agata, to see how she fared and why she had run.

To try to be there when his child was born.

…

Madanach paced the floor of his cell. Of all the things that had surprised him in the aftermath of the negotiation-gone-wrong, it was how quickly they'd found him a cell in Cidhna Mine, and how quickly he'd been thrust into it; it was only a matter of hours after the fight that he had come to, and this was where he'd woken up.

At first, it had been confusing and he hadn't known where he was; he'd looked around in wonderment. Had he had too much to drink and gotten lost? What had happened?

And then: slowly, the memory of the last hour had returned. He remembered seeing Hrolfdir, and how old and tired the deposed Jarl had been. He remembered the axe sticking out of the man's neck, the spurt of blood, the graceful way he sank to the ground. He remembered shooting flames at those around him, even in a rainstorm that somehow manifested inside the keep.

He remembered the face of that foul orc as he went down.

And now he was here, in this cell, even farther underground than the keep had been.

The fact of his imprisonment fell over him like a waterfall. The air in here was stale; the only sound was the continuous clink-tap-clink-tap of pickaxes on rock. Though they'd provided him with a desk and a store of food, it all tasted of sand and made him feel ill; and to whom would he ever write?

The air was stale, and the sky was far. He would never hear the voices of his gods in here.

He was alone down here and would be forever.

…

Her home had been turned into something of a field hospital. Bothela walked between the bedrolls, tending wounded and tsking over their injuries. Nearby, Odvan sat in a rigged-together swing hung from the doorway and giggled over the crackle of the fire. The baby seemed to have taken to the change in his circumstances particularly well.

Currently, Bothela had two young men that had resisted Jarl Hrolfdir's forces and been sparked by magic, an older man with burns over a third of his body, and a little girl who would sport scars from the stab wounds all over her body. The girl was not lying in a bed; she stood at the kettle, stirring carrots into the stew for their supper. She'd proven quite useful since she was able to get up and about, and since Bothela's other girl had never returned – probably dead in the attack – it was good to have help.

Especially since she was also making housecalls.

The damage hadn't been as bad as she'd feared the day it happened. Since then, Bothela had been out around the town and could see the attacks had gone between the keep, down the road upon which she lived, and into the marketplace. She'd seen Birgit only an hour or two after it happened, and found that almost all of the young woman's whole family had been slaughtered. When she'd heard that, she'd felt the injustice of it all rise up inside her.

That was the worst of it, though.

She'd had Alys's body sent back to her husband, at the mine. The man had buried his wife in the hillside. It was hard to believe that she would never see her beautiful daughter again, but Bothela somehow found this less haunting than the question of her daughter's last words: "I had the courage."

Whatever could the girl have meant?

Grinding together a potion to spread on one of the wounded's injuries, Bothela found herself turning this over and over in her head. Her daughter had not been a woman of action – Alys, for all her good intentions, had always been paralyzed by indecision, unable to commit to any course of action. It was hard to believe her doing anything that required courage.

In his swing, Odvan giggled and bounced.

By the fire, Bothela could hear the girl singing softly. When she'd asked the girl about her family, the girl had only shaken her head. She was a smart little thing, not like the last one, and had already begun mixing up herbs when she needed a simple healing potion or a poultice for the wounded.

It was too late for her own daughter, but perhaps, in a way, Bothela could begin again.

…

The Imperials had erected a few tents next to his camp. They stood out from the mismatched militia tents – all of them were red canvas, of the same size and shape. Ulfric looked at them, and though he'd suspected all along what was about to happen, somehow he knew for sure when he saw the tents.

He turned to Igmund, who looked distinctly nauseated and ill at ease, and if the tents hadn't solidified it for him, Igmund's expression would have.

He would meet this challenge as he met them all: with honor. His reward was in Sovngarde, and only the Divines knew when his death would come. It was not for him to fight or run from it.

And yet still, the betrayal stung.

Inside the tents stood the emissary, a balding legionnaire with olive skin. Around him stood two dozen more legionnaires, hands at their weapons. They were going to take him by force, apparently.

"Why?"

The legionnaire looked confused. He turned to Igmund, who refused to meet his eyes.

"Why is this happening?"

No one in the tent seemed to want to answer.

"I will go, but first you owe me this much." He spoke directly to Igmund, even though the older man was still refusing to look directly at him. "Why?"

"It's because of Talos," Igmund told him, finally meeting his eyes. "The Empire agreed to allow worship of Talos in the Reach, but the Aldmeri Dominion refuses."

Now it was Ulfric's turn to remain quiet. He let the silence stretch on. The legionnaires stood, watching them both, waiting patiently for the scene to play out. There was a feeling of preordination in the air, thick as honey, and he knew if he just waited, Igmund would go on.

It would give him great satisfaction to hear the rest, even if he did end up in a cell.

"We cannot hope to win against the Dominion."

The silence stretched longer this time.

"You gave up Talos for a false peace."

"There's nothing false about it!" Igmund snapped back at him, as angry as if he were the one being betrayed. Ulfric almost found it amusing; in fact, he would have were he not about to be arrested.

"You gave up a Divine for fleeting calm."

"It was you or my people," Igmund snarled. "What else was I supposed to do?"

But the answer was as clear to Ulfric as it had ever been: he could feel the amulet around his neck warming as he spoke.

"This was never about me or about your people. It was always about Talos."

And then a legionnaire came forward with a gag and another with ropes to bind his wrists, and Ulfric was forced into silence.

…

Igmund was crowned on Harvest's End. There was still blood on the walls of the city; everywhere Moth looked, the people of the city wore recent scars and blood-soaked bandages. The Silver-Bloods were somehow back in finery, but even they looked more tattered, more tawdry than they had before.

Watching the Nord ascend to the Mournful Throne, Moth looked at his sister with a sense of unease. When the choice had been to bring back Hrolfdir, it had been an easy decision to make. But now he wondered if he had thought it through.

They were back in the keep, true. They were out of the Warrens, and no longer subsisting on rats and what leavings they could scrounge from the middens before the wealthier citizens' waste turned. But now the people in the Warrens where those who'd supported the self-styled King of the Reach, and the man himself lived in Cidhna Mine.

Despite the blood spattering the walls of the city and the collection of new corpses in the Hall of the Dead, Moth couldn't help but feel that only the cast had changed; everything else had stayed the same.

In the evening, when things were quiet but for the hiss of Dwarven machinery, he and Ghorza had discussed it. She was cagier than he, and less likely to admit that she felt dissatisfied, even to him, but he had a feeling that inside, she felt the same.

Maybe it was time to go back to the stronghold, or perhaps just another place in Skyrim. Maybe trying to scratch out a living here wasn't worth it.

The city smelled of blood. The smelter was running again full-time now, and the blood scent mingled with the odor of melting silver and gave the air a toxic aroma that had Moth yearning for the countryside.

The crowd around Moth began to applaud and cheer as the new Jarl received his crown. It was the uncle who placed it on his head, and once again, Moth regretted that these Nords passed titles through families. If only they fought for power, as his people did – how different this would be. They would be ruled instead by the strongest, instead of just the luckiest, the one who'd had the fortune to be born into power.

…

When she'd left the city, Agata had had no idea where she was going. She just knew that she had to get out, had to run from the people she'd thought she knew, thought she'd serve. The amulet around her neck, abandoned with her nephew, had been closing tighter around her throat and grown heavy as a collar.

What use was following a Divine like Talos if he wouldn't stop such mindless destruction of innocents?

A child could never go to Sovngarde.

She'd wandered for some days, sleeping in hollows under rocks and eating juniper berries and thrush eggs. Once she found a rabbit with a broken leg and cut its throat. After skinning it, she was able to roast it over a small fire, and found the meat more succulent and juicy than she'd imagined. When she was thirty, she drank from streams and when she felt too dirty, she bathed in them.

Despite how little food she found, she felt her belly grow large before her. Her balance was off, and she stumbled into rocks, tripped over her own feet. Her armor no longer fit, but she wore it as best she could anyway, figuring that loose, ill-fitting armor was better than none.

Two weeks into her wanderings, she stumbled across the camp.

There must have been fifty people there, of all ages from old men to a single toddler, tottering about and pulling on all the women's skirts. Her mother had been killed in the aftermath, Agata learned.

She told no one who she was or what she had been doing in the city. She could tell just by looking at the refugees that these people had been with Madanach and had fled the destruction after the negotiation. That suited her just fine; she had no interest in going back to join Ulfric's militia. She could not be a part of an army that would wreak such destruction on innocent people; she could not follow a man who broke his promises.

She would not return to Eastmarch. She had been a fool to think of herself as a Nord at all.

She was a Reachwoman,


	7. Epilogue: Forsworn

The Markarth Incident: Forsworn

By: Veronica Lale

Disclaimer: Thanks Bethesda, for creating an immersive world.

Notes: Apparently there were still some questions, so I decided to complete this epilogue.

The mine was dark and the sound of pickaxes rang out all the time in the flickering torchlight. Sometimes the prisoners worked, sometimes they slept; everyone followed a different schedule, and so there was always someone working when Odvan tried to sleep.

Inside Cidhna Mine, there was no day nor night.

Every time he woke, he cursed the fate that had brought him here. He had never been one to side with the Forsworn, despite what his father had told him, despite the stories he heard in the camp growing up. Staying with his grandmother or aunt in the city had always held more appeal than running through the Reach in a loincloth and sacrificing goats to the hagraven of some rocky outpost or whatever it was his father was always up to.

It had taken prison to turn him into a radical, him of all people. Radicalism was his birthright.

When he was a boy, his father had told him over and over again of his mother's sacrifice. "She was there that day, my boy," his father would say, his face shining proudly. They'd be standing on a particular outcropping that overlooked the city on a day with little fog. They could see the outline of the keep where his mother had been murdered.

"She was the one who killed the Jarl. She was the only one who defended our king, Madanach."

His father would tell him about how when he'd fled the melee and made his way back to Bothela's home, he found his dead wife and his baby boy. Alys's axe had been gone, and father had known that she had succeeded where so many others had failed.

It hadn't been enough, and Odvan always secretly thought his mother had died for nothing. Igmund hadn't seemed a particularly bad Jarl – not until he was imprisoned with this lot of criminals.

He hadn't killed that man. He didn't remember that night, but knew he'd gone from the tavern to his aunt's house, and there was no way he could have gone past the alley where the body was found, not with how much ale he'd had. It was a miracle he'd made it back there at all. He had barely made it to the smelter the next morning, where the guards had found him.

Igmund was the one who sentenced him, just hours later, with that Altmer smirking behind him. The Thalmor Justiciar's robes melted into the darkness behind the Mournful Throne, and for the first time, Odvan found himself looking on the floor for the exact place where the old Jarl had died. He'd heard once that you could still see the bloodstains, decades later.

But he hadn't time; the trial, such as it was, ended in less than ten minutes, and he'd been sent off to Cidhna Mine.

It was only a day later – or maybe ten hours, or maybe two days, time moved so differently this deep in the ground – that he had first spoken with Madanach.

"Your mother was very loyal to me," the former king said. He was skinny, pale from years spent underground, and under his eyes the circles were deep. He wore rags like the rest of them, but had a bed as opposed to a pile of hay, and he allowed Odvan to sit in his one chair. There was something courtly about him, even among the murderers in this hole in the ground.

"I heard she was the one who murdered the Jarl." Madanach winced at this version of events.

"It was her axe, and she was the one who threw it, yes," the King in Rags nodded. "She believed in our cause. She would be sorry to hear that her son had abandoned it."

"I don't understand." And he didn't. Subtlety was lost on him.

"She would want you on our side," Madanach said gently.

And so the uprising would begin again.


End file.
